Money missing from account

pboae

I know this is a bit vague at the moment, but I don't have all the details yet. My Gran is completely mentally incapacitated, and in a care home. Every month about £400 pension gets paid into her account and £320 gets paid out to the council. The other £80 is her 'pocket money', which doesn't get spent so ought to be building up in the account. She also had a few thousand in savings in the same account.

My family have just noticed that there seems to be money missing from the account. On the monthly statements the 2 expected transactions are there (£400 in £320 out) and nothing else, but the final balance goes down by an additional £100 a month. This has been going on for a year, so there is over £1,000 unaccounted for. It wasn't noticed earlier because they were checking the transactions each month rather than adding up the balance IYSWIM.

The bank are being unhelpful so far, and are virtually refusing to discuss the details with anyone. This is partly due to administrative problems (one person has been an attorney on that account for many years, but no-one has applied for official power of attorney yet, obviously this will now be sorted out immediately).

It has also been suggested that an ISA may have been taken out in her name (although this could just be crossed wires). If that has been done, it has been done fraudulently, but even so, surely the debits would show on her statement?

Is there any sort of regular payment that can be taken from a current account that would not show up as a transaction on a statement?

jonesMUFCforever

No.
Somebody has got hold of the wrong end of the stick.
From your posting not sure who.

Please be aware that the rules for setting up Powers of Attorney have now changed.

catwoman150

Is this account a book account that can be up dated on a regular basis. If it is then you can always ask the bank if there has been an error or missing transactions on the book. Have you added all of the credits and debits up to see if they tally? I had a problem with a book account and the total balance did not tally one day with the money that I withdrawn. I went back to the same branch and they said that there was nothing wrong with it and there was no transactions missing. I then said that the money that I withdrew did not added up to the total balance and they still did not get it. All they kept saying to me was that they have checked their computer and their was no transactions missing. I then decided to go to another branch of the same bank and explained to them. They then had a look at the book and then on their computer and after 2 hours in the bank they had sorted it out. All in all there was a page worth of transactions missing and in the end they had to give me a new book and this was on a third party account. I have not been to the other branch of this bank since. Then the account balance did add up to what was being credited and debited.

As long as you know what transactions have been made that is half the battle.

This just shows how sometimes the banks can make a mistake.

pboae

Thanks for that.

It's not a book account, just a regulat current account with monthly paper statements. As there are only 2 transactions every month, you can see at a glance that everything is coming and going as it should.

But a monthly statement starts with an opening balance of say £1,000, £400 gets paid in, then £320 goes and the closing balance is £9,980 instead of £1,080. Very strange.

I guess we'll be able to find out more once the power of attorney is properly registered.

RayWolfe

Very difficult to understand. As you say, either the transactions are showing or they are not. I've never found it necessary to "foot" my bank statements, ever!
Hope you get it sorted once you have the POA sorted but I suspect it must be a bank error.

PBA

From what you're saying I just can't see any way of this happening. Are you sure it's not $320 in and $400 out a month? All transactions must be shown on the statement, money can't just disappear.

bengal-stripe

pboae wrote: »

But a monthly statement starts with an opening balance of say £1,000, £400 gets paid in, then £320 goes and the closing balance is £9,980 instead of £1,080. Very strange.

By the end of the month you have some £9000 more! Nice one!!!
Maybe your math is at fault!

pboae

Thanks for that bengal-stripe, my maths is better than my typing. :rolleyes: