Abbey national say a/c closed but savings book says not!

borderterrier_3

I have a savings a/c with the now revamped abbey national which has over £100 in it. Last date in book is June 1996.

The Abbey say the account is closed yet I still have my passbook which is 'current' in my view.

Anyone else had this issue and overcome it?

alanq

Are you still living at the address on the account? Have you received any mail from Abbey over the years? After all this time without being updated the account may have been made dormant. Hopefully Abbey will be able to trace it.
http://www.bba.org.uk/bba/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=260&a=386

Abbey may claim that another possibility is a duplicate passbook may have been issued to replace one that was mislaid and the account was really closed using another book. They may not have records going back that far so if the account isn't dormant you may have problems even having the passbook.

Essex123

I closed an Abbey passbook account last weekend, and even though they printed some recent transactions into the passbook they did not record the closing interest or withdrawal in it. Instead I was given a slip of paper with the details on.

Very strange - which is what I expect from Abbey really.

topcat7000

Fraid so - I am in the same boat.
I found an old Abbey passbook with around £100 in it, last used in 1996. I went into my local branch to close it and they said they couldn't find it. I had to fill in a form to send to their Head Office. I then got a letter back saying they couldn't find the account so therefore it must have been closed. I told them I really didn't think I'd closed the account (after all, if I hadn't used the passbook, I'd have had to take some other ID into the branch and as I hadn't lost the passbook (it was filed away with my old bank statements), I couldn't imagine I'd forget going to those lengths to close the account. Anyway, I have got nowhere with Abbey and so referred it to the Financial Ombudsman who have been no help. They just say that Abbey have sent them a copy of account numbers around my old one but mine doesn't show up, therefore it must have been closed. It amazes me that I can at least produce an 'open' passbook as evidence, while Abbey can produce no evidence and yet they get to keep the money!! I think it's disgusting that they can conveniently not find my account and therefore for them that's the end of the matter. What rights do the public have against these arrogant institutions?!

Essex123

The only right they understand is taking your business elsewhere in the future!

cottager

Every passbook account I ever held was clearly marked as closed or cancelled in some other way (drawing strikethrough lines, cutting off the corner or something which set it apart), but there is the possibility as alanq says that it's the original book where a duplicate was subsequently issued.

It's hard to know what to do now that even with the book and details, Abbey/Santander say they cannot trace the account. The only thing I can suggest is you try this site:
http://www.mylostaccount.org.uk/
which is a means of reuniting people with lost accounts.

I think you'd have to approach it by 'forgetting' you know any account details, and including info from around the 1996 period and maybe for the next few years. I haven't used the service myself (so don't know all the questions asked), but presumably there's somewhere in the process which allows you to enter previous addresses, name variations etc.

As I understand it, your details are then passed to all banks and other institutions -- wouldn't just be Santander -- who would then check their records for matches.