Locked account

wisemk

My father is elderly with limited mobility and not IT literate. Last week I took over the responsibility of helping him with his banking via the mobile app. He wanted me to transfer £50 to his friend for some shopping she did, (this transfer had been done many times before) but when I did it the account locked. After phoning the number I was told the only way forward was for him to visit the bank. I explained that this was not going to be easy as I live miles away and he has limited mobility. But this was the only choice.
So last Thursday I took a day off work unpaid, to travel to my dads, pick him up, and get him to the Lloyds Bank. After 2 hrs in the bank, where we explained the situation, they finally unlocked his account stating everything would be ok now. They tried to transfer the £50 but could not, so asked me to check the next day.
So on Friday I checked his account and it hadn't gone through, so I tried myself again and the account locked again. Another phone call to them resulted in them stating that we had to go to the bank again. I explained the cost and logistic issues and the fact that we had been there the day before, to no avail, they just keep repeating 'go to the bank'.
The situation now is that he has no access to the £90,000 in his current account and is losing £11.5 a day in interest (we were going to transfer it to high interest accounts). He has no money to pay bills or buy food, something which the bank has no sympathy with. 
I have complained to the bank who have eight weeks to respond before the ombudsman will take it on.
My question is, where can I go to resolve this quickly? I have no confidence in taking another days unpaid leave to take him to the bank, when they didn't fix it last time. 

Power of attorney has been initiated with a 20 week lead time.

eskbanker

If the bank are aware that their customer's account is being accessed by someone else without formal authority then yes, some friction should be expected. That doesn't excuse them telling you that this would be fine if it wasn't, though.

I don't know if being added to the account via a third party mandate might be a viable workaround while waiting for the PoA to be sorted out?

How were the regular transfers being made before?

km1500

although obviously we will never know exactly why this has happened my suspicion is it is because you are involved i.e there as a large amount of money in his account and a third party is trying to manipulate it

sorry I don't mean this to sound the way it did but I think you get the gist of what I'm saying

to you, he is your father: to the bank he is of their customer and they have a duty of care

boingy

Consider opening a joint account at Lloyds with your father. Transfer all his money to it, which may require another visit in person. But then you can effectively run the account for him whenever he wants. Obviously this requires you both to trust each other.

wisemk

Thanks for all the comments. What frustrates me more is that there is no provision for disabled people who cannot go to a bank. The bank have absolutely no sympathy, and would be happy for him to starve. Lets not forget that this is his money, not the banks.
The £50 that keeps failing is by using a transfer that has been used many times before, and when the bank are unable to transfer it on our behalf, I do question if the security bar is set far too high. In the end I used my own account to transfer it with no problems at all.

£90,000 at 6% interest is not a small sum, one may think that there is an alterative motive for the bank to prevent him from taking it out of his account.

flo22

is you ask the bank to mark him as vulnerable they should assist more

eskbanker

boingy said:

Consider opening a joint account at Lloyds with your father. Transfer all his money to it, which may require another visit in person. But then you can effectively run the account for him whenever he wants. Obviously this requires you both to trust each other.

That would muddy the water about whose money it is (generally regarded by HMRC, DWP, local authorities, etc as 50/50 in a joint account) so is best avoided....

boingy

eskbanker said:

boingy said:

Consider opening a joint account at Lloyds with your father. Transfer all his money to it, which may require another visit in person. But then you can effectively run the account for him whenever he wants. Obviously this requires you both to trust each other.

That would muddy the water about whose money it is (generally regarded by HMRC, DWP, local authorities, etc as 50/50 in a joint account) so is best avoided....

It's not always about authorities, jurisdiction etc. Sometimes it's about people needing access to their money from day to day. Until an LPA is in place a joint account might be the best solution.

eskbanker

boingy said:

eskbanker said:

boingy said:

Consider opening a joint account at Lloyds with your father. Transfer all his money to it, which may require another visit in person. But then you can effectively run the account for him whenever he wants. Obviously this requires you both to trust each other.

That would muddy the water about whose money it is (generally regarded by HMRC, DWP, local authorities, etc as 50/50 in a joint account) so is best avoided....

It's not always about authorities, jurisdiction etc. Sometimes it's about people needing access to their money from day to day. Until an LPA is in place a joint account might be the best solution.

Sure, I appreciate that there's some urgency but this whole situation appears to have arisen from someone acting hastily and trying to bend the rules without foreseeing the consequences, so care needs to be taken with the next steps....

xylophone

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/saving/article-12340459/CRANE-CASE-vulnerable-laws-got-debanked-HSBC.html

wisemk

As far as I'm aware we haven't bent any rules, I believe my father is entitled to seek help with his finances and the bank were made fully aware of his proposal to transfer money to high interest accounts. They were also told and registered the 2 devices that would be used. But please correct me if I'm wrong about breaking any rules.