Help!!!!!!!!Barclays bank

kellyswon

Hi guys i am new so please be gentle with me.
Can any one give me a bit of advise please?
I stupidly bought an item on e-bay (£577)the seller asked me to pay cash directly into his bank account(barclays)for which i am a customer to he gave me name of account holder,address,bank acc number and sort code before i paid in the money i asked the cashier if all the details he gave me corrosponed with the bank account,without going into detail the cashier told me everything looked fine and the account was open with transactions coming and going the seller subsquently closed his ebay account without sending me the items the police have been informed and they have said it looks like fraud .My question to you is how can Barclays open a bank account when the postcode does not corrospond with the address he has with bank so they have not done the required checks on his details,can i claim any money back from Barclays surely they are neglegent as well please help with any info you can many thanks

Bokkens

Welcome to MSE.
Fraudulant actions involving a bank account and the relevant enquiries have recently been handed over to the Bank's to investigate the Police no longer do the initail enquiries.
What has happen could happen to anyone ,as the account holder always has the opportunity to close an account after withdrawing the funds from the account.
You will need to establish a point of contact at your bank so you can liase with the same person each time you call.The bank will have to track down the original owner of the account and try and make contact with them this can take several months as the account holder is unlikely to reply.
You will need to keep on top of it and badger the bank into action.Once it is clear the account holder has been sent letters and has still refused to pay then it becomes a theft(according to the bank)(although in law it was always a theft)and the bank should then hand over all the information copies of letters etc to the local Police who should then make enquiries to trace the offender.
Again get a Police point of contact and be polite and calm as enquiries are normally done by another force.ie You live in Nottigham but the offence and the enquiries are taking place in Clapham.
There is almost no chance of getting your funds back even when the offender is convicted at court and the court tells him to repay the money is he likely to send it to you each month! No.
Try and remain positive and explore each possible avenue that you can.Speak with the bank/CAB/EBAY to see if you can claim your funds back from them.
It is a bit late but,look at how you pay for such items in the future could you use a credit card?Paypal?
good luck
now I've answered hopefully others will chip in as well.