Does anyone recommend a bank account?

htrj

Hi. 

After yesterday's experience with Barclays I need to switch bank accounts. In short, my mother has had a few spells in hospital this year and I have been taking care of her bill paying. Every time she gets a big bill to pay, Barclays anti fraud team call her to verify the payment and if she doesn't pick up the phone to them (she can't hear the phone ring even when it's right next to her) Barclays freeze her account. She had a new boiler installed for £8000 or thereabouts and they froze her account. She wanted to drive over to see her sister in Ireland but the £500 ferry ticket caused a freeze on her account. I had to do some repairs on her property after the storm last weekend and she just wanted to pay me back for the cost of the materials, and that caused a freeze on her account... and each time Barclays do it to her she has to go through a highly stressful inquisition regarding the validity of the payments she's making. I swear these call operators are more likely to send her to an early grave than the illness she has. 

Aside from the stress that this causes each time she has to unlock her account my fear is that one of these payments is going to need to be made while she's in hospital, possibly incapacitated and can not lift the freeze on her account herself. I'm already registered as Third Party Administrator on her account but that doesn't seem to give me much power at all.

I understand the times we live in regarding fraud and scams etc but can anyone here suggest a bank that will actually allow you to make payments as and when you need to without being so obstructive?

tacpot12

Santander has been ok for me. Their online banking allows you to have a payment limit, but override this if you have your mobile phone on you. Santander are very aggressive with their anti-fraud generally, but I've been able to fund ISAs with £20K lump sumps with no problems. 

elsien

Parent is with Lloyds and they have been quite good on the fraud front. Although she has requested that they do phone her if they have any concerns because she valued the extra layer of protection. 

Otherwise In the short term, your mother could do a general power-of-attorney which would allow you to manage things on her behalf while she was in hospital. Like the third-party mandate though if she’s only effective while she has capacity.
In the longer term, it would be sensible for her to make a proper lasting power-of-attorney to be used while she still has capacity, with her consent. That would allow you to support her while she is in hospital if necessary, but also solves a soul as a world of pain if she does lose capacity. 

Sarahspangles

Nationwide don’t call me, but is the issue actually that your mum doesn’t use a smartphone or app? Because I do get texts and need to log in to the app to authenticate.

It does sound time for you to consider an LPA, if you’re moving from ‘ringing the bank on mum’s behalf’ to ‘I need to do this transaction myself’

htrj

I think Sarahspangels has hit the nail on the head for the short term but LPA has got to be the way to go long term. She does not use a smart phone and very rarely picks up her texts, but if she had a phone with the app on it, i don't suppose there would be anything stopping anyone helping her authorise a payment, through that phone, with her consent of course. 

Ok, thanks for your help. Im off to buy a smart phone and make an appointment with her solicitor. 

Brie

I had third party authority on MiL's NatWest account and that worked quite nicely.

elsien

If she preferred to use a solicitor to make a power-of-attorney, that is her choice. But it is possible to do it yourself online much more cheaply if your affairs are not complex.

Murmansk

Just in case it's of any use to anyone else who wants to receive one-time passwords but doesn't have or want a mobile phone, you can get a virtual mobile number from Andrews and Arnold. It's only about £1.50  a month and it causes any texts received to be forwarded to an email address. Anyone ringing the number gets to leave a message and that goes to email too.

I have one on my website as I don't want to put my real mobile number on there. It works well for me and I have actually used it for receiving OTPs

eskbanker

htrj said:

Every time she gets a big bill to pay, Barclays anti fraud team call her to verify the payment and if she doesn't pick up the phone to them (she can't hear the phone ring even when it's right next to her) Barclays freeze her account.

[...]

and each time Barclays do it to her she has to go through a highly stressful inquisition regarding the validity of the payments she's making. I swear these call operators are more likely to send her to an early grave than the illness she has.

They'll be obliged to make reasonable adjustments to accommodate deafness if they're made aware of it, but if she can hold a conversation on the phone but not hear it ring then perhaps a better handset might help?  Obviously avoiding the need for phone calls from fraud teams would work better but all banks are obliged to block accounts in the event of what are considered to be suspicious transactions, so changing banks is unlikely to be the answer....

Keep_pedalling

Your mother really should put a lasting power of attorney in place as a matter of urgency.

elsien

Just going on my local hospital though, internet and mobile access is non/existenf through most of the building, so that’s something to consider as well.