Money paid into closed bank account

samosa

My partner recently upgraded his bank account from a key account to a royalties gold at RBS. The cashier told him that both his key account and his royalties gold account had been closed and he had to find somewhere else to bank. As this was only a few days from payday he had no time to open a new bank account elsewhere or change his account details with his employer. (His payroll will only change details before the 6th of every month). He was told that the money would be sent back to his employers account within 3 working days and they could send a BACS payment to my account.

His payday is usually the 25th of the month and his payroll are still saying the money hasn't come back from the RBS. He has been into the branch of RBS and they say there is no way they have the money in either of the accounts. We seem to be at a stalemate with each one telling us they don't have the money and no way of finding it and would really appreciate some guidance please

ironlady2022

If the account is closed, it will hit an RBS suspense account. You need to go back to your Employer's bank so they can put a bacs trace on it. It can take some time which is annoying, but this will get the ball rolling. Could they not have issued a cheque? Or paid into your bank account?

DrSyn

1. What reason did they give for closing the accounts?

2. This bank owned by the tax payers,us!

3. If the details are as stated in your post and you do not get a speedy resolution or they start messing you around, here is way of dealing with it ( which may take time).

Write a formal letter of complaint with the steps you have taken to resolve the matter, to the chief executive of RBS at their UK head office. Send by recorded/special delivery so they can not say we never recieved the letter. I believe the details are correct but you best check them for your self.

Mr. Stephen Hester (Chief Executive)
Royal Bank of Scotland PLC
135 Bishopsgate
London
EC2M 3TP

4.If you are are not satisfied with the final result you can then take the matter on to the financial ombudsman service.

Lokolo

DrSyn wrote: »

1. What reason did they give for closing the accounts?

2. This bank owned by the tax payers,us!

3. If the details are as stated in your post and you do not get a speedy resolution or they start messing you around, here is way of dealing with it ( which may take time).

Write a formal letter of complaint with the steps you have taken to resolve the matter, to the chief executive of RBS at their UK head office. Send by recorded/special delivery so they can not say we never recieved the letter. I believe the details are correct but you best check them for your self.

Mr. Stephen Hester (Chief Executive)
Royal Bank of Scotland PLC
135 Bishopsgate
London
EC2M 3TP

4.If you are are not satisfied with the final result you can then take the matter on to the financial ombudsman service.

Banks can choose their customers, so they can close accoutns as they want. Although it is very rare to do it without reason.

The official complaints route is:

When you contact us, please quote your account number, branch sort code, details of your complaint and what you would like us to do to resolve matters.

Write - The Royal Bank of Scotland, Customer Relations Unit, 225 Shenley Road, Borehamwood, WD6 1TE

I don't see why anyone should go through the Chief Executive, it's not their job to have to waste time in resolving customer issues, even if they do just pass it on.

The bank has 8 weeks to respond before you can go to the FOS, or as DySyn says, you aren't satisfied with the final result.

samosa

Thankyou for taking the time to reply, it is much appreciated My partner was made bankrupt 6 years ago, hence the key account, but has had good banking history with RBS since he opened his account. The cashier advised my partner that the bank were going to be closing the key account in the next few weeks. But since my partner is bankrupt he is uneligible to apply for the key account so they closed both. We have complained to the branch in writing and copied it onto the head office and financial ombudsman

In the meantime, my partners wage is floating in cyberspace with neither the bank or his he bank say there is no such thing as a holdings or suspense account and his wages department saying the money hasn't hit back in their account so the bank must have it somewhere! He is employed by local government so they have strict policies about payroll. They will not issue a cheque, and we tried to get the payee account details changed as soon as we knew the accounts had been closed but they said they only processed new account details upto the 6th of the month!

agrinnall

samosa wrote: »

In the meantime, my partners wage is floating in cyberspace with neither the bank or his he bank say there is no such thing as a holdings or suspense account and his wages department saying the money hasn't hit back in their account so the bank must have it somewhere!

I find it hard to believe that any bank employee would say there is no such thing as a suspense account. Every bank has thousands of them, and having worked at RBS for many years before I left I can assure you that the money is indeed in one of them (I think it will be a suspense account at the sortcode your partner's account used but I'm not certain of that). Your employer's bank needs to initiate a BACS trace and request the return of the money. Banks deal with this sort of thing every day so if the money is not with your partner soon I would initiate the complaints process that Lokolo has mentioned.

Twister84

What I'd do, is first visit your local branch with your account number(s) & sort code(s) and ask them to check the account closure details. They can check closing balances & method of payments.

After that, they should log a concern to find out where the money's gone - obviously it all depends on when the account was closed aswell.

agrinnall

Twister84 wrote: »

What I'd do, is first visit your local branch with your account number(s) & sort code(s) and ask them to check the account closure details. They can check closing balances & method of payments.

After that, they should log a concern to find out where the money's gone - obviously it all depends on when the account was closed aswell.

Although I've never worked in a branch I'm not sure that the OP would be able to do this as they no longer have a customer relationship with RBS. I'd have thought it very unlikely that RBS will do anything other than return the money to the payer so it would be better for the employer's bank to raise this with the RBS BACS help desk.

Twister84

agrinnall wrote: »

Although I've never worked in a branch I'm not sure that the OP would be able to do this as they no longer have a customer relationship with RBS. I'd have thought it very unlikely that RBS will do anything other than return the money to the payer so it would be better for the employer's bank to raise this with the RBS BACS help desk.

It all depends on when the account was closed, ie before OP's partner was payed, or after. If it was closed before the payment was made, then the money would have bounced back to the originator, and if it was after, then I would suggest that they did what I mentioned in my post. As mentioned they would need their account details - that is all they need to check what happened to their closed account balances.

Also, I know for a fact that CINs are retained despite there being no accounts, so I'd imagine that the bank'd keep some details at least, even though they've asked the customers to bank elsewhere.

zppp

samosa wrote: »

We have complained to the branch in writing and copied it onto the head office and financial ombudsman

OK. Because you have made a written complaint to the branch, it will be forwarded to a customer service centre. They will now investigate as per the complaints process.

As for writing to the ombudsman, I can assure you that it was a waste of time at this stage. Where you haven't gone through the full complaints procedure of the organisation, they just write a letter with your details, stating you have a complaint they cannot consider.