Advice needed - Barclays took money from my accounts and froze them

eskbanker

plewis00 wrote: »

What you say about bank transfer is true but actually then, it's a flawed method and the banks telling you it is one-way and irreversible (which they do) is totally false.

Do you have any credible source/links for "banks telling you it is one-way and irreversible" as a recipient? Naturally they'll highlight that you can't just change your mind as a sender but if they're suggesting that the process is irreversible full stop then that would be rash and inaccurate.

plewis00 wrote: »

I'm not expecting Barclays to compensate me and accept blame - I'm expecting them to do all they can to get a fair resolution and by helping rather than impeding me and if that includes a gesture of goodwill along the way, then let's face it - they can afford to.

You were initially making noises about taking them to court, which obviously requires you to prove that they are in breach of Ts & Cs, laws, regulations, etc. If you're resetting your expectations to hoping to persuade them that they could have done more and looking to squeeze some compo out of them then go ahead, but it's not clear how you'd plan to do this after having already gone through their own process and that of FOS.

plewis00 wrote: »

The bit I cannot comprehend is when you hear that someone's account has been compromised and hacked, they usually get the money back (you know, in the papers or on Watchdog) - but you don't hear about the companies and businesses who were paid having the funds seized back having provided products or services in good faith, so how is this different? Or is it not different, just that we never hear about it?

I'd be very wary of basing your perceptions of how fraudulent activity is handled in the banking industry on what you read in papers or see on Watchdog!

born_again

plewis00 wrote: »

Had this been PayPal they would fight my side, Barclays get away with doing nothing and allowing this to happen by the looks of it.

Are you sure on that.
PP account compromised. The acc holder would get the money back. Who supplied the goods would be out of pocket.

plewis00 wrote: »

The buyer is a criminal - there is no recourse there, especially not now as Barclays and the Ombudsman have let that drag on for 18+ months.

But there was nothing from stopping you using the police while Barclays & FOS were dealing. As I would have expect that they will have told you too.

plewis00 wrote: »

The bit I cannot comprehend is when you hear that someone's account has been compromised and hacked, they usually get the money back (you know, in the papers or on Watchdog) - but you don't hear about the companies and businesses who were paid having the funds seized back having provided products or services in good faith, so how is this different? Or is it not different, just that we never hear about it?

Someone has to pay in the end and if the bank has done nothing wrong why should they. As we all know a retailer builds costs into product pricing to cover these sort of things.
Even if the buyer had used stolen card details. You would have ended up out of pocket as the bank would claim the money back from the retailer.

plewis00

born_again wrote: »

Are you sure on that.
PP account compromised. The acc holder would get the money back. Who supplied the goods would be out of pocket.


But there was nothing from stopping you using the police while Barclays & FOS were dealing. As I would have expect that they will have told you too.



Someone has to pay in the end and if the bank has done nothing wrong why should they. As we all know a retailer builds costs into product pricing to cover these sort of things.
Even if the buyer had used stolen card details. You would have ended up out of pocket as the bank would claim the money back from the retailer.

Yes, I am sure on that, PayPal have Seller Protection if you ship in line with their policies and this has occured before but been covered. As to your credit card point, you'd have to use a payment processor like PayPal and you'd be covered if you operated within their guidelines.

The police didn't want to know and referred it back to Action Fraud who took the report but it was a dead end.

plewis00

eskbanker wrote: »

Do you have any credible source/links for "banks telling you it is one-way and irreversible" as a recipient? Naturally they'll highlight that you can't just change your mind as a sender but if they're suggesting that the process is irreversible full stop then that would be rash and inaccurate.

You were initially making noises about taking them to court, which obviously requires you to prove that they are in breach of Ts & Cs, laws, regulations, etc. If you're resetting your expectations to hoping to persuade them that they could have done more and looking to squeeze some compo out of them then go ahead, but it's not clear how you'd plan to do this after having already gone through their own process and that of FOS.

I'd be very wary of basing your perceptions of how fraudulent activity is handled in the banking industry on what you read in papers or see on Watchdog!

Barclays did make some pretty stupid claims - the branch manager told me to 'use my personal accounts' until I explained that they'd locked those out and that would also be terrible advice for tax reasons. If you genuinely told me that BACS payments are reversible from either end, it would be the first I'd heard of it.

I made 'noise' about taking them to court because I don't think it was handled correctly and I don't think it should've gone down like this. As if the financial loss, loss of access to my accounts and emotional strain wasn't enough.

Fortunately, I have little to go on with how banks handle fraud because the bank is just the hub not something we use regularly really. As I said, PayPal seems to be far better as a company to deal with, I just didn't know banks could do so little or be so disinterested and that's actually normal behaviour.

BoGoF

As soon as they 'offered' to pay by bank transfer alarm bells should have been ringing with you. If you offered payment by credit/debit card or paypal why would anyone want to pay by bank trsnsfer?

Kentish_Dave

I’d agree with the others above, Barclays are not in the wrong here and they are unlikely to compensate you.

The money which arrived in your account looks to have been stolen, so was returned to the victim. I’m not sure why your bank should compensate you for this from their own funds.

If you accept payment by bank transfer then this is sadly part of the cost of doing business.

eskbanker

plewis00 wrote: »

Barclays did make some pretty stupid claims - the branch manager told me to 'use my personal accounts' until I explained that they'd locked those out and that would also be terrible advice for tax reasons. If you genuinely told me that BACS payments are reversible from either end, it would be the first I'd heard of it.

I made 'noise' about taking them to court because I don't think it was handled correctly and I don't think it should've gone down like this. As if the financial loss, loss of access to my accounts and emotional strain wasn't enough.

Fortunately, I have little to go on with how banks handle fraud because the bank is just the hub not something we use regularly really. As I said, PayPal seems to be far better as a company to deal with, I just didn't know banks could do so little or be so disinterested and that's actually normal behaviour.

Sounds like there are two separate issues here - the reversal of the £1500 transaction by the sending bank (was this actually BACS or just Faster Payments btw?) and the way Barclays dealt with you after the event.

Obviously you won't get that stolen money back, but if you have clear evidence that Barclays' subsequent handling of your complaint was deficient compared with their policies, FCA regulations, etc, then you could try to make some sort of claim out of that.

Did you push the original complaint as far as an ombudsman decision at FOS or was it just an adjudicator? If the latter then you have the right to escalate, but if it's already been in front of an actual ombudsman then you could share the Decison Reference Number on here so that posters can review the ombudsman's findings (via https://www.ombudsman-decisions.org.uk/) and see if there are any other angles that might work.

Ultimately, though, Barclays aren't obliged to tell you anything about the sending bank, and even if they did, the sending bank wouldn't deal with you on the subject. Your earlier assumption that both banks have joint liability (to you?) is unfounded and likewise I still don't see any evidence that the compromising of the sending account signifies demonstrable security weaknesses at the sending bank....

Moving on and looking forward, you might need to look more closely at your pre-transaction checks - when you say the buyer "offered to pay by bank transfer, everything checked out fine, the payment was made, checked and confirmed with Barclays", specifically what checks did you conduct at that stage?

You'd probably also benefit from banking with at least one other bank to avoid the situation where problems with a business account impact on your personal accounts too.

Flobberchops

An account coming under review is by its nature a frustrating time for the account holder - it takes time, the bank is gagged in that they're *not allowed* (not just unwilling) to divulge information, and it may conclude in money being permanently withheld if the bank decides it was transferred criminally.

The fact that Barclays accepted the incoming payment shouldn't be read as them giving a final, unalterable nod of approval. It wouldn't be practical to delay all incoming payments for screening, and what's more the payment may not be disputed until after it has been received. Banks are obliged to take seriously any allegations of fraud, theft or criminal activity that are received internally, from other banks, or from the police. So, it may be that the incoming payment was from a hacked account, and it was only after the victim approached their bank to log it as a fraud that Barclays was alerted to the disputed nature of the payment and took action to freeze it. Consider it from the opposite point of view; if money went missing from your account you'd want the bank(s) involved to lock it down before the recipient could withdraw it and do a runner, wouldn't you?

Incredibly frustrating and disappointing to be on the receiving end of, but it sounds like the bank was acting in accordance with the regulators who they rely on to retain their banking licence.

born_again

plewis00 wrote: »

Y
The police didn't want to know and referred it back to Action Fraud who took the report but it was a dead end.

You are aware that Action fraud is the police.... And Action fraud pass the details of a report to the police force that would need to deal with it. So they can investigate it.

plewis00

Flobberchops wrote: »

An account coming under review is by its nature a frustrating time for the account holder - it takes time, the bank is gagged in that they're *not allowed* (not just unwilling) to divulge information, and it may conclude in money being permanently withheld if the bank decides it was transferred criminally.

The fact that Barclays accepted the incoming payment shouldn't be read as them giving a final, unalterable nod of approval. It wouldn't be practical to delay all incoming payments for screening, and what's more the payment may not be disputed until after it has been received. Banks are obliged to take seriously any allegations of fraud, theft or criminal activity that are received internally, from other banks, or from the police. So, it may be that the incoming payment was from a hacked account, and it was only after the victim approached their bank to log it as a fraud that Barclays was alerted to the disputed nature of the payment and took action to freeze it. Consider it from the opposite point of view; if money went missing from your account you'd want the bank(s) involved to lock it down before the recipient could withdraw it and do a runner, wouldn't you?

Incredibly frustrating and disappointing to be on the receiving end of, but it sounds like the bank was acting in accordance with the regulators who they rely on to retain their banking licence.

I think your response comes closest to the 'complete answer' I was looking for, not the one I wanted but you explained it better than being told 'it was my fault for taking a bank transfer' so I appreciate the empathy all the same and at least you're not telling me we're stupid for taking the transfer in the first place. This was actually reversed 2-3 weeks later (it wasn't as though it was later that day or even a few days) and I'd even had confirmation the items were delivered from the buyer, just as we would any other situation.

Businesses take bank transfers all the time, so to the person who said 'it should set alarm bells ringing' - no it shouldn't, you need quite a lot of authority to actually set one up usually 2FA or a PIN device so whoever managed to get their account compromised obviously leaked a lot of information out there. To the person who said cash can be compromised, if that had been the payment method and I'd seen it first hand then that's the end of it.

I've had a long string of battles with Barclays anyway and this is the final straw as well as being treated like a criminal by their mindnumbingly dense staff. Having moved an account to Metro Bank, the difference in customer service is mindblowing - Barclays honestly feels like they're stuck in the dark ages in that respect and I seriously don't know what they actually do for me apart from hinder my day-to-day, not just in this case but randomly stopping regular credit card payments or HMRC VAT payments to the same account we do each quarter.

But lesson-learned, we won't take bank transfers any more because you'll never really know that it's totally safe until potentially weeks later and you can't expect customers to wait that long either. Just last month someone tried to buy an item with bank transfer and I said 'no, cash only' (because they were collecting) and he actually called me a 'lying c**t' for saying that BACS payments could be reversed at all! There's a lot of misinformation out there. Even on these forums people say the payments can't be reversed!

Thanks to those who did reply - even if it's not what I wanted to hear.