Did my bank break the law?

jonesMUFCforever

As long as OP was party to the joint account they have done nothing wrong or broken any law.

OP wants someone to blame - if bank won't do then posters on here are in the firing line!

ldnboi88

I am not 'looking' to blame anyone. What I am not happy with is that the bank has forced me into a position I did not want to be in, by disclosing personal information. I know that they did not tell him but once its on a statement they have as good as told him!

peterbaker

ldnboi88 wrote: »

Looks like I have come to the wrong website for help here. I thought I would get good advice of a financial matter not morally inspired confession encouragement.

Please if you have any comments relating to what the bank has done, rather than if I should have admitted it or not, please leave a message.

I agree with Morty_007. Banks apparently have to settle all sorts of "D&I = Distress & Inconvenience" compensation claims thesedays.

This sounds like it most certainly caused both. The going rate for the distress of sending out of a bank statement to the wrong person by Santander on 18th December was £100 a go apparently. Your case sounds a lot more serious than that, especially if you confided in the bank how sensitive the loan was. If you are confident that you gave them no indication that the joint account was where the money should go then I say complain strongly.

If there was no link between your ATM card and the joint account when you went in and identified yourself using it to get the loan, how on earth did the money get linked to the joint account??

Ridiculous that the lady in the branch should have taken it upon herself to try to fiddle the system to cover her mistake. Did she even register a complaint? If she didn't she has breached FSA regulations by failing to properly register your disatisfaction as a complaint for a start. You will know if she did because you should receive a written acknowledgement within 5 days of expressing your disatisfaction.

If I was in your position and had confided the sensitivity of the arrangement to the person who made the mistake I would be absolutely livid and the bank would know about it at a very high level.

opinions4u

I was certainly trained (and trained my staff) not to pay a sole name loan in to a joint account without the verbal agreement of the customer taking the loan out.

The OP's confidentiality has been breached and I would think there are FOS rulings against banks in similar circumstances.

Is it illegal? The Data Protection Act isn't always a provider of clarity. But I would certainly agree that the principles of data protection have been breached.

That said, there is little doubt that major financial secrets in a relationship are usually a bad thing! Work together to get the finances back under contol.

anxious_mum

I have to clarify a couple of things here:

1) When you applied for the loan, did you ask for it to be paid into a personal, separate account which belonged to you, and which your husband did not (possibly) know about?

2) The above is true, but the bank paid it into a joint account? By mistake?

ldnboi88

My husband knows that I have my own account with them but obviously he has no access to this account and hence this is why I wanted the money to go into this account.

I have no idea why they put the money into the joint account as at no point in the application was this account mentioned and the bank could not even tell me why it was put in that account.

shellsuit

If you asked them to pay the money into your sole personal account, which you said you did, but they paid it into your joint account with your husband, then something has gone wrong and it is the banks fault.

I don't know about it being illegal, but I'm sure it would come under the data protection act.

I'd complain all the way with this one. Me and my husband have sole account and we have 2 joint accounts too. If I applied for a loan in my name to be paid into my sole account, but it went to the joint account, I'd be bloody livid!

shellsuit

ldnboi88 wrote: »

My husband knows that I have my own account with them but obviously he has no access to this account and hence this is why I wanted the money to go into this account.

I have no idea why they put the money into the joint account as at no point in the application was this account mentioned and the bank could not even tell me why it was put in that account.

Do you have any paperwork relating to the loan with the details of the account it was to be paid into?

ldnboi88

No, I recieved no paperwork as I only recieved a call to say that the loan had been agreed and that the money was in the joint account. The only paperwok that I recieved was the pre-contract agreement and the credit agreement which has no account detals on it apart from the loan account number. I have not even got a copy of the direct debit mandate.

anxious_mum

I think the bank has bombed massively in this, and I would be writing all kinds of letters of compliant! I don't have any proper 'links' advice, but if you asked for it to go into number xxx and it went into account number zzz then you have a valid complaint. Good luck, and I'm sorry it caused you bother. x x x