Compensation for lost cheque?

jacinta_dodd

LLoyds TSB lost our cheque for more than 90 000 euro back in Feb '11. After hours on the phone and even a referral to the FOS, we still haven't got the money, but we have been promised that it will be with us in 3 weeks' time.

The bank keeps apologising and accept it's their fault and say they will recompense us, but how much should we expect, or how much is fair? They did send us £200 as a goodwill gesture!

We intended to settle our motgage and pay off a substantial car loan and haven't been able to do so. We have missed out on some very attractive exchange rates and we have had to pay over £1000 in Spanish taxes, for which we had to transfer English money and pay expensive transfer charges. This doesn't take into consideration, telephone calls, time and stress.

Any advice gratefully accepted.

JD

opinions4u

Tell them what rate of exchange you could have got and ask them to match it.

Additionally, ask them to pay interest on the money at your mortgage rate / loan for the period of time that you've not been able to use the funds.

They should put you back in to the position that you would have been in had the error not happened. So doing this plus £200 seems reasonable.

jonesMUFCforever

Before charging in like a bull in a china shop I would ask that you read the terms and conditions you accept when you signed to have the cheque either collected or negotiated.
It might not be an open and shut case.

Why or why did you not get the funds transferred electronically?

pinkdalek

If the bank have accepted it is their fault then they should put you (at minimum) back to a position you were in before it went wrong and should not have to suffer any financial loss. Anything additional eg £200 compensation is entirely up to you and how you feel the bank has treated you and your complaint and their efforts to resolve it and keep you up to date.

jacinta_dodd

Supposedly the Spanish bank insists on sending it in the old-fashioned way...

LLoyds have always accepted it is their mistake and have assured us that they will sort the problem, but it is a cse of when.

jacinta_dodd

Thanks - good advice. They want to give us tourist rate for the exchange, which could result in us losing a considerable amount. The buy rate has been as low as 1.10:£1. Are we within in our rights to insist on a certain exchange rate? Thank you. JD

jacinta_dodd

Good advice - many thanks. JD

jonesMUFCforever

jacinta_dodd wrote: »

Thanks - good advice. They want to give us tourist rate for the exchange, which could result in us losing a considerable amount. The buy rate has been as low as 1.10:£1. Are we within in our rights to insist on a certain exchange rate? Thank you. JD

Absolute rubbish - they will give you the exchange rate for international payments not tourist (money) rates.
As I have said if the cheque was lost in transit between Lloyds and the Spanish bank they are covered in the terms and conditions - it is not their fault unless you can prove incompetence - this is not somebody in the complaints team just saying sorry its our fault.

Which Spanish bank was it that could not send the money electronically?
Please name and shame.
(Or did you baulk when a fee was mentioned and you thought a cheque would be cheaper?)

jacinta_dodd

jonesMUFCforever wrote: »

Absolute rubbish - they will give you the exchange rate for international payments not tourist (money) rates.
As I have said if the cheque was lost in transit between Lloyds and the Spanish bank they are covered in the terms and conditions - it is not their fault unless you can prove incompetence - this is not somebody in the complaints team just saying sorry its our fault.

Which Spanish bank was it that could not send the money electronically?
Please name and shame.
(Or did you baulk when a fee was mentioned and you thought a cheque would be cheaper?)

We were never given a choice about how the money reached us in England - a fee was never mentioned.

The cheque was not been lost in transit between the UK and Spain. It was lost between London and the Isle of Man branches, after being sent via LLoyds bank's internal post. We also have one letter in which LLoyds admits liability.

Please believe me when I say that we paid the cheque into our own UK current account - regardless of the rate. We have the original 'stamped' paying-in form. The London branch actually called us and told us it was the worst thing we could do as we would lose money on the exchange. They recommended we open a euro account and advised us that we would then get the bank exchange rate on the day we electronically tranferred the money to our curent account. It was when the cheque was sent from London to the Isle of Man to open the euro account that it went missing.

Thank you for your continued advice.

JD

jonesMUFCforever

I am confused the bank buys from you the Euros at exchange or collection.
You pay the cheque into a Euro account in Euros then offer you the same rate (or it would be if both transactions were on same day) but you have to pay to open a Euro account.
The branch stamped form would not have any exchange rate on it as the branch does not do the conversion.
If you asked at the counter what rate it would be you might have been told the tourist rate (by mistake!)

Did you ask the Spanish bank whether they would send the money electronically?

jacinta_dodd

jonesMUFCforever wrote: »

I am confused the bank buys from you the Euros at exchange or collection.
You pay the cheque into a Euro account in Euros then offer you the same rate (or it would be if both transactions were on same day) but you have to pay to open a Euro account.
The branch stamped form would not have any exchange rate on it as the branch does not do the conversion.
If you asked at the counter what rate it would be you might have been told the tourist rate (by mistake!)

Did you ask the Spanish bank whether they would send the money

Lloyds supposedly asked the Spanish bank to electronically transfer the money and cannot provide a creditable reason as to why the request was denied.

We have to pay £100 to open the euro account, but we haven't been charged as yet.

We were not allowed to pay the original cheque in over the counter due to the amount and had to meet with a personal banker. It was him who explained the exchange rate. He said it would take 4/6 weeks to process and we would get the exchange rate on the day. Had the transaction been completed on the same day as we paid the cheque in, the rate would have been 1.226 to the £1 (his example). It was him that explained the cheque would be treated as returned holiday cash - the buy-back rate.

By coincidence, on the same day we paid our cheque in, we had a much smaller amount of euro electronically transferred from the Spanish estate agent's bank to our English account, for which we were given a rate of 1.18 : £1, which is where we get the difference in exchange rates from.

It was the poor exchange rate that we were likely to receive that motivated the bank to stop the process and advise us to open the euro account. They explained that when we then transferred the money to our English account, we would then be be given the better bank rate of exchange.

It won't affect the advice you can give us, but does it make things clearer?