Security Issue (Possibly)

MGWannabe

Just discovered I owe Barclays some money, much to my surprise. It appears that my joint bank account (with my soon to be ex wife) was drained in two ways:
1.Firstly the joint bank account which was for short term savings only, and therefore had no on line access, could be used by my ex as she had another Barclays account, and these were linked when she accessed her on-line banking account.
2. The bank saw fit to take money from the joint account to pay into her personal account when she went overdrawn.






The result is that I have a debt of £710 against me (curiously apparently not against my ex), when I thought there was £3.5k in the account. Also this has adversely affected my credit history. If there is any experience or advice out there it would be much appreciated. I think it's also a security issue that should be considered and remedied by Barclays.

Archi_Bald

If it is a joint account with your wife, she has the same rights to access the account as you have. She also has the same duties as you, i.e. if there is an overdraft one the account now, she is as liable for it as you are.

No security issue there, unless you had previously informed Barclays that there is a dispute and asked them to suspend access to the account.

eskbanker

MGWannabe wrote: »

1.Firstly the joint bank account which was for short term savings only, and therefore had no on line access, could be used by my ex as she had another Barclays account, and these were linked when she accessed her on-line banking account.

I think most banks associate online banking with the individual rather than the account, so someone with multiple accounts will by default see all of them when they log in.

MGWannabe wrote: »

2. The bank saw fit to take money from the joint account to pay into her personal account when she went overdrawn.

See http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/banking/setting-off

meer53

Money in your joint account belongs to you and your ex. She has the right to draw it out if she still has access to the account. Same with her debt, the bank don't differentiate between who has paid the money in to the joint account, if she owes money they will use whatever they can access to repay it if she isn't forthcoming with the repayments.

If you haven't disassociated yourself from her, this will affect your credit file. Why haven't you closed the joint account ?

jonesMUFCforever

To be clear here - Barclays can only offset funds in her sole savings account against a sole current account.
On the other hand she could withdraw money from any joint account and pay into her sole account.


OP YOU need to get confirmation who exactly made the transfers.
Make sure you tell Barclays that the account is in dispute to stop her taking any more.
The debt on a joint account means you are both liable for all of the debt - tell your solicitor you want this taken into consideration in any financial settlement.


There is no security issue here.

pmduk

Account holders being able to see their accounts online is hardly a security issue. Maintaining a joint account with an ex-partner may be, but can't be blamed on the bank.