Barclays are re-ordering transactions to force charges!!

Jay_Hay

I recently sent this letter to Barclays, which I would like to share with you all in order to prompt checking of accounts and find other instances of this behaviour:

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Dear Sir,

My wife stopped working 6 months ago in order to have our baby, and started receiving her maternity allowance approximately 1 month ago. This is her only source of income.

We noticed that a great deal of her income was being swallowed in bank charges, but initially thought this was due to an oversight on her part, and so I monitored her spending habits in order to ensure that she did not incur further charges.

Through the process of my monitoring I suspected that the order of transactions was being manipulated by your bank in order to allow the bank to make charges; I therefore devised an experiment to test this hypothesis.

Having carried-out this experiment I now have incontrovertible proof that your bank is indeed manipulating the order of transactions on my wife's account in order to make charges in your favour.

I have therfore raised this matter with the Financial Services Authority in order to:

a) seek refund of all of the fraudulently-obtained monies on behalf of my wife, and
b) ensure that other customers are refunded in the same way.

It is my intention to raise this matter with Customer Protection Agencies, such as Money Saving Expert, Watchdog and the Office of Fair Trading in order to publicise this frankly disgusting abuse of your position of trust.

I look forward to your urgent response to discuss refund of charges and changes to your systems in order to stop this abuse of customer trust.

Regards,

Me.

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Her account is normally close to zero at the end of the month, and she incurs charges each time she goes into the red. She checks her balance every time before she takes money out.

Her maternity pay is paid in on a certain date, but I noticed that cashpoint withdrawals and transactions made on the day her money is paid were being placed BEFORE the deposit of her pay, thus incurring a charge.

To test this, I got her to check her account on her pay day and PRINT a bank statement to show the state of the account.

I then waited a full hour, then got her to withdraw some money from the cashpoint, and make sure that no other transactions were made that day. We then printed the statement which clearly shows both transactions in the correct order.

We waited until the following day, and checked her account again. This time the withdrawal was shown as going through BEFORE the deposit, and a charge was incurred.

We printed the statement again, and have retained them as evidence - it is plain to see that the order of the transactions has been reversed.

It would be interesting to know whether others have experienced (or indeed not noticed) the same issue.

Premier_2

Incontrovertible proof regarding allegations of fraud?

That's obviously not good is it? Have you considered contacting the SFO? This is probably widespread or do you think they are only targetting your wife?

Or perhaps its simply that you don't fully understand. I suggest you read fully the terms and conditions before you get too carried away.

dunstonh

Her maternity pay is paid in on a certain date, but I noticed that cashpoint withdrawals and transactions made on the day her money is paid were being placed BEFORE the deposit of her pay, thus incurring a charge.

That is correct. Its standard accountancy method and has been this way for decades. Although it is coming to an end as real time banking comes in to existence. At the moment we have a bit of a hybrid with most banks.

It would be interesting to know whether others have experienced (or indeed not noticed) the same issue.

Yes. Everybody and its nothing new and its not fraudulent.

zppp

Jay_Hay wrote: »

I recently sent this letter to Barclays, which I would like to share with you all in order to prompt checking of accounts and find other instances of this behaviour:

---

Dear Sir,

My wife stopped working 6 months ago in order to have our baby, and started receiving her maternity allowance approximately 1 month ago. This is her only source of income.

We noticed that a great deal of her income was being swallowed in bank charges, but initially thought this was due to an oversight on her part, and so I monitored her spending habits in order to ensure that she did not incur further charges.

Through the process of my monitoring I suspected that the order of transactions was being manipulated by your bank in order to allow the bank to make charges; I therefore devised an experiment to test this hypothesis.

Having carried-out this experiment I now have incontrovertible proof that your bank is indeed manipulating the order of transactions on my wife's account in order to make charges in your favour.

I have therfore raised this matter with the Financial Services Authority in order to:

a) seek refund of all of the fraudulently-obtained monies on behalf of my wife, and
b) ensure that other customers are refunded in the same way.

It is my intention to raise this matter with Customer Protection Agencies, such as Money Saving Expert, Watchdog and the Office of Fair Trading in order to publicise this frankly disgusting abuse of your position of trust.

I look forward to your urgent response to discuss refund of charges and changes to your systems in order to stop this abuse of customer trust.

Regards,

Me.

---

Her account is normally close to zero at the end of the month, and she incurs charges each time she goes into the red. She checks her balance every time before she takes money out.

Her maternity pay is paid in on a certain date, but I noticed that cashpoint withdrawals and transactions made on the day her money is paid were being placed BEFORE the deposit of her pay, thus incurring a charge.

To test this, I got her to check her account on her pay day and PRINT a bank statement to show the state of the account.

I then waited a full hour, then got her to withdraw some money from the cashpoint, and make sure that no other transactions were made that day. We then printed the statement which clearly shows both transactions in the correct order.

We waited until the following day, and checked her account again. This time the withdrawal was shown as going through BEFORE the deposit, and a charge was incurred.

We printed the statement again, and have retained them as evidence - it is plain to see that the order of the transactions has been reversed.

It would be interesting to know whether others have experienced (or indeed not noticed) the same issue.

But in black and white, if you don't go overdrawn you won't trigger charges. Therefore if you monitor your spending, you won't trigger them. (BTW it's not fraud)

jamesd

Of course others have noticed this. It's the normal practice in the industry and you can expect every bank in the country to do it. Intraday payments require funds to be in the account at the close of business the day before the transaction to be assured that you will avoid charges. Or you can have an overdraft facility in place to cover them and avoid the charges. It's possible also to have charges even though your balance the day before and at the end of the day was in credit if you went overdrawn during the usual processing runs.

Barclays may be kind and refund some of the charges since it's obvious hat you don't understand this part of how the banking system works.

A complaint to the FSA is mostly pointless because they aren't the responsible regulator. The escalation route is Barclays internal complaints procedure then if you're not satisfied with that, the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS).

Aside from hoping that Barclays decides to be nice you should arrange to have sufficient funds to cover the payments without going overdrawn during processing, for at least one month, then to seek an overdraft facility sufficient to prevent this happening in the future even if the balance is zero.

Also note that checking balances before drawing money isn't reliable because there can be pending transactions in the system, perhaps from card purchases earlier in the day.

leclerc

Jay, can you tell us what kind of transactions they are?
Can you clarify if the charges she is incurring from the previous month are the ones that are going through the account on the day the maternity pay goes in?
How much is she being charged?(is it the £22.00 Barclays reserve useage fees?)

With regards to other posts, the thing i am gathering is don't trust the bank to tell you the truth cos the ATM maybe wrong, the balance maybe wrong and it might all be wrong.

I don't agree that it is fraud either but will be interested in their response to you.

evie-mays-mum

In the past 4 months i have noticed barclays holding on to payments and then putting them through up to 8 days later and charging an extra fee on top of the reserve fee,as all of a sudden you are over the reserve
I have spoke to them and they have blamed the people takin the money for not doing so straight away,which is rubbish as one of these transactions was for paypal which is instant payment then 8 days later i get a charge followed by a letter saying I have been charged a fee as a guaranteed payment was taken from my account and i did not have the funds available!!at the time of the purchase i most certainly did and it was taken from my account according to my on line banking.
I have no idea what they are up to and am certain that all of a sudden all companys are not claiming there monies,as usual you phone the bank and are talked to like a numpty and told its not there fault
I smell a big fat rat!!

ALIBOBSY

If I am reading this correctly the OP is saying his wife gets paid on a certain day, and that balance should then be available to draw on. Barclays let her draw cash against this pay then change the order of the transactions so it shows her as being overdrawn and then in balance on the same day?

Despite what the other posters say this is not standard bank practice. Our bank will let us draw on cleared funds due in on mon over the weekend and not charge us, all transactions show as cleared on the mon and not overdrawn.

Hard to say that its fraud, but its certainly not how the other banks work, surely deposits clear at midnight the day before? If I read the OP right she can't draw on cleared funds until the day after they clear without going overdrawn? Thats crazy its her cash. Credits should (and every account I have and have ever had does this) go in first on that day followed by the debits.

ali x

ALIBOBSY

zppp wrote: »

But in black and white, if you don't go overdrawn you won't trigger charges. Therefore if you monitor your spending, you won't trigger them. (BTW it's not fraud)

Have you read the OP first message, they didn't go overdrawn and were drawing against a cleared balance, but by manipulating the order the transactions appear on the account the barclays system charges them for being overdrawn for the milliseconds between the transactions being processed by the computer???

ali x

Premier_2

ALIBOBSY wrote: »

Have you read the OP first message, ...

Have you read the OP's profile?

Join Date: 19-06-2010
Total Posts: 1
(post was made 19-06-2010 5:05 PM)
Last Activity: 19-06-2010 5:06 PM

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dunstonh

Are you suggesting that it was perhaps a troll style wind up post?