BARCLAYS CASH ISA CANCELLED WITHOUT MY KNOWLEDGE

isa_angry

I found out today that Barclays bank cancelled my Cash ISA. Shocked was an understatement.
They produced a letter that was supposedly sent stating that I had to phone them before a certain date, otherwise they would close my account. this was due to not making any financial transactions. I never received said letter. Barclays bank cancelled my ISA regardless and put my money into a dormant account without my consent. 
My main complaint is that Barclays Bank never followed up with a letter to explain their actions or to ask me what was to be done with the now dormant ISA money
Has this happened to anyone else?

wmb194

isa_angry said:

I found out today that Barclays bank cancelled my Cash ISA. Shocked was an understatement.
They produced a letter that was supposedly sent stating that I had to phone them before a certain date, otherwise they would close my account. this was due to not making any financial transactions. I never received said letter. Barclays bank cancelled my ISA regardless and put my money into a dormant account without my consent. 
My main complaint is that Barclays Bank never followed up with a letter to explain their actions or to ask me what was to be done with the now dormant ISA money
Has this happened to anyone else?

Presumably you can login to internet banking and withdraw the money?

eskbanker

isa_angry said:

I found out today that Barclays bank cancelled my Cash ISA. Shocked was an understatement.
They produced a letter that was supposedly sent stating that I had to phone them before a certain date, otherwise they would close my account. this was due to not making any financial transactions. I never received said letter. Barclays bank cancelled my ISA regardless and put my money into a dormant account without my consent. 
My main complaint is that Barclays Bank never followed up with a letter to explain their actions or to ask me what was to be done with the now dormant ISA money
Has this happened to anyone else?

Have you seen the letter they produced, which ought to explain the situation?  When was the account last used and are you still at the same address?

What to do next depends on what your desired outcome is:

If your main concern is to get hold of your money, they should be able to clarify how to do so once in the dormant account.

If you want to find out more detail about what happened, you could submit a subject access request to ascertain what the basis of the decision was and all correspondence, etc.

If you want to complain, then complain, via the process shown on their website, including escalation to the ombudsman if they fail to address matters to your satisfaction....

HappyHarry

isa_angry said:

I found out today that Barclays bank cancelled my Cash ISA. Shocked was an understatement.
They produced a letter that was supposedly sent stating that I had to phone them before a certain date, otherwise they would close my account. this was due to not making any financial transactions. I never received said letter. Barclays bank cancelled my ISA regardless and put my money into a dormant account without my consent. 
My main complaint is that Barclays Bank never followed up with a letter to explain their actions or to ask me what was to be done with the now dormant ISA money
Has this happened to anyone else?

You haven’t lost your money, and can claim the funds back and put them
in a new ISA without affecting your usual annual subscription. 

Have a look at the guidance given to cash ISA providers here: 

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/close-void-or-repair-an-isa-if-youre-an-isa-manager

Closing dormant accounts

An ISA may be a relevant dormant account if for 15 years or more there have been no transactions:

• carried out by the account holder
• carried out on instructions from the account holder

You can close the account and transfer the balance of a dormant ISA to Reclaim Fund Ltd. Find out more on the Reclaim Fund Ltd website.

Lifetime ISAs are excluded if the transfer would result in a withdrawal charge.

Junior ISAs cannot be relevant dormant accounts and you cannot close them.

Account holders or personal representatives of a deceased account holder who contact you about their closed ISA, have a right to repayment of the balance from Reclaim Fund Ltd.

The repayment of the balance from Reclaim Fund Ltd is not liable to tax.

Recovered funds from the dormant assets scheme can be placed into any type of ISA without counting towards the annual subscription limit except if they’re put into a Lifetime ISA.

masonic

You'll probably be better off in the long run as I can't imagine they were paying much interest on an ISA left alone for so long.

Albermarle

masonic said:

You'll probably be better off in the long run as I can't imagine they were paying much interest on an ISA left alone for so long.

I was going to say the same. I do not think there are many ( any?) on this forum holding the same cash ISA for 15 years, or even 15 months in many cases !