What should we ask for from Barclays ?

dawnybabes

We bank with Woolwich and I pay in at our local Barclays. On the 1st Dec I made out 2 paying slips one for £500 and one for £9,500 as I was buying a new car. I checked the account online on the 5th and only the £500 was showing. I immediatly rang Woolwich and queried it to be told wait a few days. I did and it still didn't appear. I rang back and got told they couldn't help as its a Barclays issue. I rang Barclays and got through to an indian call centre where the stupid woman just kept asking me for my Barclays account number - eventually she got it and told me I would have to take a copy of the chq to my Barclays - I tried to tell her 5 times that they had the b****y chq so I couldn't ! Put the phone down and got in the car and went to the branch. They could see it on the computer along with all my account details so as far as they where concerned it was all OK. Rang the woolwich the next day, they couldn't help - they tried to talk to Barclays but they told them they were looking into it and would come back to me. 2 days later got a letter from Barclays with a complaint ref number on it and it telling me they would look into it and get back to me by 6th Jan - HELLO !!!! this is 9.5K here ..... In the meantime I had to pay for my new car so it wiped out all the money we had. 1 week later still not arrived in the account so spent an epic 2.5 hours on the phone to the Woolwich as our mortgage was due out the next day and we just had enough to cover it (18th Dec now) - all they could do was offer us a loan or advise us to bounce the payment so we had money at Christmas and reclaim the money back after the event. Doh !!!!!

I got my mum to transfer us £1k over to cover everything as no-one could tell me where/when the money was coming.

Found out chq was cashed on 5th Dec so rang Barclays up this week (Wednesday) to scream at someone they promised to ring me back - no call. Rang again next day - Thursday (b4 postman arrived) and got told again they will ring me back. Post arrives and got a letter from Barclays saying they are still looking into it and they will get back to me by 8th Feb.

Yesterday got call from Barclays saying they have found my money it is in a holding account but until Woolwich reject/accept it they can't do anything about it till 16th Jan.

Was told that they can't compensate me for time and stress (why the hell not ??????) but can for interest lost and cost of calls - what do you think ?

Personally I want some money for the stress that I have had over this, the worry and the horror of borrowing money off my mum the week b4 xmas.

Am I being unreasonable ?

Dawn

Astaroth

I am confused as to what you were trying to do.... obviously you weer trying to move money between accounts and using a cheque to do this. You went into barclays (got that bit) to pay a cheque into your woolwich account (got that too) but which account was the cheque being drawn from? Your Barclays one?

Assuming it was it does sound that the Barclays brand is the innocent party here... they will have sent your cheque to the woolwich who would have then sent it to clearing (assuming barclays havent integrated their systems since buying them). A lot of too-ing and frowing then happens and finally barclays move your money out of your account and tell woolwich where they can collect it from. Woolwich then withdraw the money and deposit it into your account (potentially via a holding account at their end too - given the sum involved this is more likely to allow further anti-moneylaundering checks to be done).

From what you say however everything went fine until woolwich failed to actually take the money. Would really need to speak to that end of the system to find out what why it was delayed - could be anything from PC glitch to back log in the counter fraud/ anti-money laundering department caused by Xmas.

Compensation.... you havent lost out financially from what you say and therefore you are really looking at a good will guesture and so wouldnt be expecting too much

dawnybabes

No the chq wasn't from Barclays - it was a zero % credit card chq which was cashed on the 5th Dec so our 6mths interest free starts ticking from there.

I don't personally bank at Barclays (have a business account there hence I pay in all of my Woolwich payments)

From what I can gather clearing cashed it then couldn't find out who it belonged to so tried to pass it back to Barclays who rejected it as they couldn't see it, and eventually offered it to Woolwich which is where we are at now.

We have lost out financially - we have had to borrow money to cover our bills as the money hadn't come through, also our 6mths 0% has now been reduced to 4.5 mths.

Was trying to save money and buy the car with 0% rather than take a loan out if we had we wouldn't have had the trouble we have had.

dmg24

I imagine that if you check Barclays terms and conditions, then somewhere they will exclude liability for consequential loss. Therefore you will only be able to claim for actual financial loss i.e. any interest lost and other proven financial loss (of which, from the information given, I cannot identify any).

dunstonh

Yesterday got call from Barclays saying they have found my money it is in a holding account but until Woolwich reject/accept it they can't do anything about it till 16th Jan.

suspense/holding accounts like this tend to be used when the money cannot be applied to the correct account for a number of reasons. Typically, this could be wrong sort code/account number on the bank giro credit.

Found out chq was cashed on 5th Dec

If you are going to take the complaint further, then the correct term is "paid" or "presented". Cashed means that someone went to the cashiers and drew cash for the value of the cheque. It may cause confusion if you use the wrong terminology.