Please help barclays took all money out my account

allpine99

the two cheques i put in £4000 and £3000 were from my brothers halifax bank account they were both bankers drafts all it needed was a phone call to confirm them and anyway thats what a clearing system is for they both took five days to clear its diabolical there are bank accounts turning over tens and hundreds of thiousands of pounds out there but they target me im fuming

allpine99

why have they taken every last penny i felt so embarassed having to put my shopping back i use my deboit card daily for shopping and petrol and they will have known this .

d.ross_2

If it is down to SOCA, then Barclays are obviously going about it the wrong way. With Lloyds TSB they phone you, and I presume that if your explaination adds up, then they clear it there and then. It wouldn't be difficult for Barclays to do something similar.

thenudeone

WestonDave wrote: »

I personally would be pushing this all the way - wanting a proper explanation as its clearly not a system glitch, its something they have set up and is not working properly.

That's an understatement. £3000 and £4000 are not big enough amounts to trigger alarms. It's not difficult to receive that much as redundancy, car sale, or cashing in savings to pay for a car, a once-in a lifetime family holiday, a wedding or whatever.

They can't excuse this just by saying "anti money laundering" any more than that bad policies that are occasionally blamed on "health and safety" or "child protection" which are nothing of the sort, just bad policies.

They need to be held to account. Go for it.

allpine99

i still dont know whether im even going to get it back cant sleep at night

d.ross_2

allpine99 wrote: »

i still dont know whether im even going to get it back cant sleep at night

Contact the police and report a theft, then see what happens.

allpine99

yeah right the police are not interested unless they can get some money out of you like speeding or no seatbelt etc

staffie1

d.ross wrote: »

Contact the police and report a theft, then see what happens.

Do you really think that one of the world's biggest banks is going to try to steal £7000 from a personal account just like that and get away with it? If what is being complained of here is true, it's been stated already what's happening.
The OP will get their money returned if it is rightfully theirs. There is obviously something about this case which is being investigated, or it's an error on the bank's part which will be corrected on Monday.

grizzly1911

WestonDave wrote: »

Putting aside the specifics for a moment to try to explain what may be happening - under legislation aimed at preventing money laundering and/or funding of terrorism, all banks (and other organisations) have to follow certain procedures. One of them is that if a transaction raises suspicions, it must be reported to SOCA (Serious Organised Crime Agency) and their clearance gained before it is allowed to proceed. During that clearance process they are not allowed to "tip off" the person involved as to their concerns. Once it is cleared it all carries on as normal and no explanation will ever be given because they are legally prevented from doing so.

Out of that basic requirement, its likely that individual banks - in this case Barclays - have set up electronic triggers that will alert them to things they think are high risk, and invoke some kind of internal procedure potentially leading to the SOCA clearance procedure. It sounds like its possible your £7k deposits have done that, and they have therefore effectively frozen your money to prevent you hypothetically passing it on to Al Queda or other such unlikely nonsense. Once it has gone through the procedure internally where someone actually looks at it, realises its daft and clears it (as its unlikely to get referred to SOCA) it will be put back with some kind of token apology.

So it sounds like as far as Barclays are concerned, they won't actually do anything however much you phone and hassle them until their processes are completed, probably because they think they are following procedures they are required to. In fact its just their inept and random implementation of the legislation which is causing this problem.

In practical terms phoning them will just run up your phone bill and won't get you money for food etc. You have little option but to borrow money from elsewhere, and try to recover it from them afterwards. In terms of a complaint, I personally would be pushing this all the way - wanting a proper explanation as its clearly not a system glitch, its something they have set up and is not working properly. If they don't come back and admit that then I would treat it as a complaint not satisfied and take it to the financial services ombudsman if you can (and can be bothered by then!)

Alpine99 - I am with Weston Dave on this one.


I would expect that there has been a trigger/alert raised for either Money Laundering or Anti Terrorism.

That may have been an internal trigger - seems a little unlikely as you have had the account for some time or one forced on them by external agencies. They may well be constrained for legal reasons.

Whilst banks do make mistakes they don't "just take your money" without a reason. (Before anyone shouts I know they charge a lot and might transfer money if you owe them some elsewhere.)

As you say it is from a reputable source. Once the checks, which might not be confined to Barclays, are cleared then I am sure the money will come back to you.

I know that does not help you right now.

You will find that there is a certain amount of secrecy within banks internal structure to ensure real bad guys aren't tipped off. Hence the stonewalling.

I think the LLoyds example used by another poster may well contain an element of marketing than this sort of check.

d.ross_2

staffie1 wrote: »

Do you really think that one of the world's biggest banks is going to try to steal £7000 from a personal account just like that and get away with it? If what is being complained of here is true, it's been stated already what's happening.
The OP will get their money returned if it is rightfully theirs. There is obviously something about this case which is being investigated, or it's an error on the bank's part which will be corrected on Monday.

You are completely missing the point here. Due to the poor way that Barclays handle this, it has left to OP with no money for food, petrol, etc. And I preume it will leave any payments due out of their account unpaid, which could lead to them defaulting on payments. This is all through no fault of their own. If the bank had handled this properly, then they wouldn't have taken the money (without authorisation) from the OP. So what they have done is actually theft. So they need to be forced to change their policies to ones that are more friendly to their customers.