So angry at Barclays

McKneff

Was there no share certificates or anything in the possession of the deceased.


I don't thin ALL the blame lies with the bank to be honest.

Shelldean

McKneff wrote: »

Was there no share certificates or anything in the possession of the deceased.


I don't thin ALL the blame lies with the bank to be honest.

Nope nothing for approx half the accounts we've discovered.

And yes ALL the blame lies with bank as we became aware quite quickly there was possibly accounts etc that we had no details for. So each bank or building society was sent a letter asking them to do a FULL search for anything the deceased held. We gave DOB, full name, addresses even NI number. We even sent these letters to banks etc that didn't think she'd ever banked with to try and cover all possibilities.

Barclays along with all the others was.sent this request. I still have the copy in my file. Barclays are the only one (so far) that had failed in this request.



Edited to add there was share certificate in her stuff but not for this account. That one related to shares in BT. Was also an insurance policy taken out in 1913!!!!!

Shelldean

The best example was NS & I. We had one book for one account. She actually held three accounts.


We had nothing for the other two accounts not even a account number.

We believe she was 'hiding' her assets hence the overpayment due to DWP for pension credit.

SevenOfNine

Shelldean wrote: »

Your story SevenofNine gives me hope but this problem is still causing us delays until DWP get their investigation restarted.
Can you explain the outline of what they did incorrectly in your case please?

NoK (my Mother) & I went to the bank with the Death Cert to freeze the accounts & this was done immediately. Then they wrote to my dead Aunt advising her of this! Each time I wrote or telephoned telling them to stop writing to my dead Aunt, they wrote to her again. Several letters, each one forwarded to my 80+ Mother by Aunts neighbours.

I had a highly unpleasant run-in at our local branch with a total nutter calling her barmy self the 'Bank Manager', who told me "that's what Barclays do, we write to dead people". I must have looked gobsmacked at that because then she told me she found my "raised eyebrows & expression on my face offensive".

After the formal complaint was raised Barclays gave me an individual complaints manager to deal solely with. He investigated the nutter Bank Manager, stated categorically that he believed she had behaved most unprofessionally.

He offered the compensation sum by way of apology, I accepted because we weren't 'out for all we could get', I knew I could have got more for my Mother but that wasn't what this was all about.

To be fair, Barclays were very helpful when I had to get copy statements for the DWP. (Similar to your situation perhaps. Aunt had been in receipt of some benefit but died with a lot of money, they wanted to check she'd been entitled to claim the benefit - turns out she was). Barclays sent me copy financial info going back 6 years - hundreds of pages, very promptly.

Good luck with progressing this, Barclays could & should do better though.

Shelldean

Thanks for that SevenofNine.

Funny enough that reminds me Barclays was the only one who got it wrong when we phoned and asked for statements on xxx date and xxx date, for the DWP investigation. They sent the wrong stuff. We had to call back and ask again. This time the sent the equivalent of war and peace. Copies of all transactions on all account, was pages and pages of transactions.

SevenOfNine

Shelldean wrote: »

This time the sent the equivalent of war and peace. Copies of all transactions on all account, was pages and pages of transactions.

Sorry, I know what's happening to you isn't funny but the above did make me laugh :rotfl:

I asked for a single statement covering a specific date, exactly as DWP had told me to, "8 years previously on xx/xx/xxx she completed a benefits claim form, how much money did she have at that point". DWP said banks can usually only go back 6 years, so just get the oldest statement possible.

War & Peace arrived just as you describe Barclays could have saved the time & expense of all that paperwork - I sent DWP 1 page & shredded the rest.

Shelldean

Glad I brought a smile.

Have to laugh or I'd cry I think.

This has been dragging on so long, deceased died March 15.

Seriously thought all would be done and dusted by now.

First probate was held up searching for accounts, then by the DWP investigation (boy are they slow) And now this.

On the plus side the estate is earning a nice amount of interest each month.

Shelldean

Chq arrived today, so at least that bit was prompt.

We now resume waiting for DWP to finish their investigation.

And for Barclays to tell us the outcome of our complaint.

SevenOfNine

We had repaid DWP all the overpayments of Attendance Allowance, Pension Credit & State Pension 6 weeks after the death & rec'd written confirmation 2 weeks after that.

It took DWP a further 3 months to tell us that she hadn't fraudulently claimed any benefit. In reality I believe she had , clearly DWP do not liaise with Local Authorities, otherwise how can someone with nearly 30k in the bank have been in receipt of Housing Benefit & Council Tax Benefit?

She'd paid zero Council Tax & only £4 per week rent for a flat located in Kensington & Chelsea!!!** It wasn't as if she was particularly adept at 'hiding' her money.

Shelldean

SevenOfNine wrote: »

We had repaid DWP all the overpayments of Attendance Allowance, Pension Credit & State Pension 6 weeks after the death & rec'd written confirmation 2 weeks after that.

It took DWP a further 3 months to tell us that she hadn't fraudulently claimed any benefit. In reality I believe she had , clearly DWP do not liaise with Local Authorities, otherwise how can someone with nearly 30k in the bank have been in receipt of Housing Benefit & Council Tax Benefit?

She'd paid zero Council Tax & only £4 per week rent for a flat located in Kensington & Chelsea!!!** It wasn't as if she was particularly adept at 'hiding' her money.

The problem with our case is the deceased didn't declare hardly any of her money. Some because she had possibly forgotten about it, hence the no paperwork etc and some I believe deliberately not declared. I agree with comment about not adept at hiding, it appears DWP just took her word for it when she claimed, as several of the known accounts weren't declared.

She was claiming means tested benefits that she was way over the thresholds for. So we will quite possibly have to pay all of those back.

The figures involved are quite high, so I do understand why DWP are taking so long in some respect.

It's been a real minefield dealing with this estate/probate. But I have learnt a lot lol