Barclays staff transferring money between my accounts without permission

enigma368

Hi,

In July of this year I opened up a basic bank account at Barclays for use as a house rent and bill account for my housemates and I.

I decided to open up a basic account as we didn't need anything complicated with the account and I did not want a credit search on my account.

It took 3 visits to the Barclays branch near work on 3 different days before I could open the account. Each time I was met with delight when I said I wanted to open a bank account, only to be followed by dropped faces when I said I wanted a basic account, which in turn was followed by excuses why they suddenly couldn't do it today and I would have to come tomorrow when their colleague was in.

In any case on the 3rd visit they had run out of excuses and went ahead with the process of opening the account. Despite my explaining specifically that I only wanted an account for myself and my flatmates to use for paying rent and bills, I was told that the basic account came with a savings account. I obviously had no use for a savings account in this instance but didn't really care so I just said "fine".

It was at the end of the signing up process when it got a bit more annoying, when I was told I would need to put £50 in the current account (bit high but fine) and £20 into the savings account as in her words "they check it when its first opened so it looks good to have money in it". I was dubious as I didnt care about or want the savings account but she said I could take the £20 out of savings account whenever I wanted so I just say "yes, fine" to get it over with.

She then told me to come back when I received my card reader so she could show me how to use it and she would do some transferring between accounts to "make things look good", whatever that meant.

I received the card reader a few days later and it was easy to use so I didnt bother going back as she had suggested. I logged into the online banking and immediately transferred the £20 from the savings account to the current account.

I assumed this would be the end of it...

However about 6 weeks later I logged into my account online to find that £20 had been transferred (a few days earlier) from my current account into the savings account. I was furious as I had not done this and nobody else had access to this account but me.

I rang Barclays to find out what was going on. The guy on the phone looked into it and said that the transfer had been done on the 3rd of September at the front desk of the branch where I had opened my account, so I must have gone in and done that. I assured him that I had not set foot in that branch since I opened the account in July, and demanded he transfer the £20 back out and immediately close down the savings account - which he did.

In the end no harm has been done, the £20 was back in my current account and nothing was lost. However we have various direct debits on the account and this transfer could easily had led to there not being enough money to cover a direct debit, had I not noticed it when I did. On principal, I think it is completely wrong for a bank staff member to go transferring money between a customer's accounts for their own purposes, without being asked or indeed without gaining permission.

I can only assume that the bank staff member had some kind of targets she was trying to meet and decided to transfer the £20 so that the savings account would appear active.

So my question is, should I just forget about it, or should I complain? Maybe this is something banks are allowed to do, I dunno, but it just seems wrong to me?

izools

This is not only wrong on principal, but illegal.

Raise a formal written complaint.

opinions4u

Complain.

Target goodwill payment of £50.

James129

Can you also see if any standing order has been set up that transfers £20 from your basic account to savings account.

But if indeed someone in branch transfered the money without your permission, then I'd think this is probably a sackable offence considering how strict banks are these days.

CapJ

The OP has suffered no losses except for the one phone call. Why would you suggest a goodwill payment? - there´s no need!

However OP please do complain. This was wrong and certainly against company rules.

opinions4u

CapJ wrote: »

The OP has suffered no losses except for the one phone call. Why would you suggest a goodwill payment? - there´s no need!

I'd forgotten the phone call. Add on £5 compensation for time wasted and the phone call .

If I established that a member of staff was making unauthorised transactions on my account I would see it as a complete breakdown of trust.

While there may be no financial loss to compensate, they have lost goodwill. I can't think of a better way to recover that than giving me some money along with an apology and an assurance that this isn't their normal way of doing business.

pmduk

CapJ wrote: »

The OP has suffered no losses except for the one phone call. Why would you suggest a goodwill payment? - there´s no need!

However OP please do complain. This was wrong and certainly against company rules.

A member of bank staff accesses an account and moves money without authority and you think there's no need for the bank to show some goodwill? I'd be taking it to the ICO and FOS which would cost them a lot more than £50!

JimmyTheWig

I'd be wanting to know why it happened and get reassurances that it wouldn't happen again.

if it's their problem and they caused you to get charges then I don't think it would have been difficult to get those charges cleared, so I wouldn't worry about that too much.
But if it's not their problem (e.g. if there is a standing order or something) then you need to make sure it doesn't happen again.

From the way it reads, the whole thing sounds like it's all been a bit of a sham.

premierfella

I don't know the ins and outs of Barclays account opening procedures.

Without going into the rights and wrongs, is it possible that the authority that the member of staff either had, or thought they had, for the transfer came from a signed application for the savings account stating that the opening credit would be £20 and backed up with a verbal "yes, fine" mentioned in the first post?

NFH

izools wrote: »

This is not only wrong on principal, but illegal.

Really? Under which law?

enigma368

Thanks for the advice.

It was definitely not a standing order. The guy said it was done at a cashiers desk in the branch. He didnt seem to think there could be any other explanation other than I had gone in there and done it.

I did sign an agreement/application to open a savings account. I felt quite deceived by this as she had said early in the process that "it comes with a savings account", as if this was some kind of non-optional extra that came with my current account whether I like it or not - and then at the end she makes me sign this "application for a savings account". At the end of the day though, I didn't see any harm and had a kind of "whatever" attitude.

I will write a formal complaint right now. I will keep you updated on how I get on.