Abbey and bereavment torture pt 2

andyinlondon

i dont know if anyone remembers my old thread https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/1600595=

but a little update.

i am now getting threatening letters from the german government because once again Santander lied to me and have stolen money from my late mother.

when i reported her death to santander and went through the whole horrible process i described in my earlier thread, i was told that all of my mothers accounts were closed and all activity was suspended on them,
not so i find out from the german government who have been paying a pension to my late mother and this pension has been happily taken by santander and kept by them.

no mention to me about it and into a supposedly closed account.

Naturally the german goverment want this overpaid money back and santander are refusing to return it.

surely this is theft? or at the very least fraud?

santander still have the £5000 they also stole from my mothers accounts in 2009.

What can i do?

agrinnall

There's nothing in your previous post about Santander 'stealing' £5000, but if that's what happened I have to assume you complained to the Financial Ombudsman, what was the result of that complaint?

After your mother died did you not check her bank statements and see that she had been getting pension payments from Germany? I think they would have been pretty obvious. It was your responsibility to inform them of the death so that they could stop payments, certainly nothing to do with Santander.

The payments from Germany have not been 'stolen', because the account was closed they would have gone into a suspense account. I doubt if you will be able to request repayment from Santander as you have no control over the suspense account, I think the pension department in Germany will need to write to them to ask for it to be returned. I also doubt if the German pension people can chase you for the money, it wasn't paid to you and you never received it [the only exception would be anything that was paid into the account between the time of your mother's death and when it was closed - if that overpayment formed part of the estate then the executor would be responsible for repaying it].

andyinlondon

Thank you agrinnall for your sympathetic and supportive post.



And to answer your questions and comments.



The previous thread was ended before Santander had made the so called final settlement so I did not know that it was £5000 less than it should have been.

I know what it should have been because



When I first went into the branch to formally inform them of my mothers death and give them all the paperwork they had requested, they had print outs of all my mothers accounts with balances and totals.

I was given this information alas not the actual documents

So I could do required probate steps and make all the arrangements.The final figure paid from Santander was £5000 less than the amount I had previously been given at which point I was assured the accounts had been frozen and that this was the actual value of the assets held by Santander.

This does not even take into account the extra pension payments Santander received and kept.



As for checking bank statements if Santander had sent any I would have checked them but of course Santander does not send out statements for closed accounts

(They just accept money into them and keep it!)



And yes I did inform the German government of her death but they obviously did not process it, on their next annual request for proof of life that they send out I informed them again and this time they did action it and requested the overpayment be returned. I told them that I did not have it and that they should ask Santander for it back, Santander at first said they did not have it but when I kicked up a fuss and said I would call the police they admitted that they had it but refused to return it to the pension provider or to pay it to me so I could return it.

(Taking something that does not belong to you and refusing to return it is theft as far as I am concerned)



And the complaint to the chairman’s office

well after a few weeks of, you guessed it no contact or information I got a garbled phone call saying that they had investigated and yes it had not gone as it should and lessons had been learned, no disciplinary action at the probate dept, denial of the missing £5000 and an offer of £500 compensation.

My reply to that was unprintable.



At that point I pretty much gave up as I could not take the stress and upset any more but now I am getting chased for the money Santander has stolen and I have to deal with it again.

agrinnall

I'm not unsymapthetic to your situation, clearly you have been pretty badly treated by Santander. However, to get this resolved you really need to take the emotion out of it and deal with things in a rational way, even if you appear to be getting a load of nonsense back from Santander.

Just returning briefly to your original issue, did you compain to the Financial Ombudsman (I would have for £5000)?

Thanks for the update on the current issue. I would say that having informed the German government then what I said previously applies even more: it is their responsibility to recover the money from Santander.

It might be helpful if you could prove (if required) that you never receieved any of the overpayment, perhaps by making a Subject Access Request to Santander to obtain all the information they have on your mother's account (I'm assuming here that you are the executor and should therefore have the authority to make the request).

http://www.ico.gov.uk/for_the_public/personal_information/how_manage/access_info.aspx

jonesMUFCforever

If you do not have statements of the closed accounts from date of death until they were closed then you need to get copies pronto.
Then when you have evidence of what went in or out of the account please come back to us.

xylophone

they admitted that they had it but refused to return it to the pension provider

And the reason Santander gave for the refusal was?

jonesMUFCforever

xylophone wrote: »

And the reason Santander gave for the refusal was?

If for any reason the pension was paid into one of the deceased's account it would have been paid out when the accounts were closed?

andyinlondon

jonesMUFCforever wrote: »

If for any reason the pension was paid into one of the deceased's account it would have been paid out when the accounts were closed?

some of it may have been but most of it was recieved by santander after they had sent what they called the final settlement of her accounts cheque.

so santander still hold this money

andyinlondon

I will probably have to go the FSO route (but i am not convinced they are really unbiased or impartial, see lesson learned ! ) but i am so sick of it all.

i am also fighting the disability living allowance people at the moment though as they have decided that my son is no longer entitled to any help as he is now 14 and according to them should be able to look after himself.. at 14 !!!

they will take his insulin away next and tell me he is cured ........ stupid (Unprintable) people

sorry i dont mean to sound like a winge-bag just a little stressed at the moment

Valli

Another way to look at this is that it's not your problem in the the pension payer (German Government) was informed of your mother's death but they failed to act on that and continued to pay money to a Santander account.

(In fact this is what Agrinall has said!)

So why not write to them and tell them the fact that they continued to pay the pension is their fault, not yours and let them fight Santander?

Keep copies of all letters and refuse to discuss ANY of this over the phone.

jonesMUFCforever

andyinlondon wrote: »

some of it may have been but most of it was recieved by santander after they had sent what they called the final settlement of her accounts cheque.

so santander still hold this money

So do you have the statements?
If so you know how much has gone in and more importantly it will have a date the account was closed.
Anything that was received after that date would have been returned to the sender.
Therefore all you need to tell the German government is date of closure and let them deal with Santander.
There could be complications because of the buy and sell rate with the euro - perhaps they can't reconcile any payments sent back to Germany because of this?