Barclays 'fraud prevention' cost me £2k

kcseb

Hi

Barclays recently blocked my debit card, due to (mistakenly) flagging a 'fraudulent' transaction.

During this time I was putting a mortgage application through with another lender, at a good rate. Said lender's policy is that they honour the rate only once you've paid the booking fee. They tried to take said booking fee twice but as Barclays had blocked my card, they couldn't.

By the time I got my card unblocked and they tried again after the weekend, the rates had changed and I got hit with 5 years at the higher rate. The total loss is £2,400.

I keep a LOT of money with Barclays: currently hundreds of thousands of £'s as I've done a lot of saving/remortgaging recently, to fund more property purchases (am building a nest egg for my son, daddy is in investor mode at the moment). I've been a customer of Barclays for nearly 20 years, though I am certainly leaving them now! Their over-zealous fraud protection is really to cover themselves, not the customer.

Can I get the over £2k out of them?

Best

K

[Deleted User]

kcseb wrote: »

Can I get the over £2k out of them?

You can try…

I would expect they accept no liability for such losses if fraud was suspected. May be (slightly) different if they admit it was their mistake...

dunstonh

Barclays recently blocked my debit card, due to (mistakenly) flagging a 'fraudulent' transaction.

Barclays have a very low floor limit. Indeed, whenever a Barclays account holder wants to use their card to pay for investments, I tell them to use a cheque instead as inevitably, Barclays refuse the debit card transaction.

Can I get the over £2k out of them?

I doubt it because you could have still got the mortgage by issuing a cheque.

kcseb

Thanks dunstonh. In fairness being forced to use a very out dated method of payment is ridiculous - I wasn't even given that option by the mortgage adviser. And the last time I wrote a cheque...well probably over a year ago.

Ultimately I've lost money because I couldn't access my money - it's not like I was buying on credit card.

dunstonh

Barclays could easily say they gave you the facility to pay the bill by cheque. Your opinion that is it outdated doesn't change the fact that it is still available and heavily used.

I wasn't even given that option by the mortgage adviser.

Then perhaps your complaint should be with the mortgage adviser. I don't personally do mortgages but I employ mortgage advisers and they still use cheques. Although in the vast majority of cases, when buying a deal, they add the fees to the mortgage and then recommend the fee is cleared once the money is advanced. This avoids the non-refundable fee being taken if the mortgage is declined.

meer53

Barclays flagging a potentiallly fraudulent transaction isn't a mistake on their part. It's how the fraud detection system works. Once you have contacted them to let them know whether it's genuine or not, the card is unblocked.

How long after they contacted you did you call them back to confirm it wasn't fraud ? I can't see that Barclays have done anything wrong here ?

[Deleted User]

kcseb wrote: »

being forced to use a very out dated method of payment is ridiculous

Like cash is "ridiculous" because it's "out dated"? It's hardly outdated until it's no longer used at all.
I don't think your argument here has any weight at all.