Stolen bank account...

[Mama81]

Hi, not posted in a long time. The tale is long, but il keep it brief.
At 16 ( I'm 40s now) I opened a bank account with a high street bank with my dad. During college and uni I had summer and weekend jobs, and the wages went into this account.
I was not allowed to use this account, there was no debit card etc that I saw or knew of at the time.
At the end of uni ( aged 22) I returned home and lived with parents for around a year. I realised there was a strong possibility of a forced marriage, and ran away aged 23 with the help of a older friend.
My parents are not violent or abusive but controlling and manipulative particularly where money was concerned.
Fast forward to age 33, so 10 years ago, my brother contacted me to say my dad had a heart attack.
I dutifully went to see him in hospital. Dad completely ignored me. He returned home about 2 weeks later and I phoned home. He screamed, swore and even name called my children, saying I had betrayed them and made my choice. ( leaving the family at 23)
I did not call again. Months passed and brother called again to say dad had got an infection, and was in a coma, it was terminal, and doctors had given him a week.
Dutifully I started visiting again. I was present when he passed 5 days later.
After the funeral mum said that she still had items of mine and would I like them. I had no idea what she still had so I said yes.
In the items was a bank book for said above account. I went to the bank to see what was in there, if it was still open etc.

It had been emptied one month after i gave birth to my oldest child. There was 10 thousand pounds in there.

Now here's the dilemma- my dad could not have emptied the account himself. I was an adult at the time of the transaction.

I suspected my sister had a hand in the matter- she has worked in finance/banking for most of her career, and we have the same initials, ie T Jones.

2 weeks ago she admitted she remembered going to the said above bank, and signing something. I found her admission insulting and vague. She would have been approx 25 years old at the time.

I am angry and hurt at the realisation that my sister has lied. She could have told me years ago dad forced her to sign a paper for my account bit chose not too.

Do I take this further, what do I do or can I do? Ten thousand pounds would make a difference in our lives.

Until my sister admitting it 2 weeks ago I chose to believe it was all dad's doing, but I feel he and my sister were equal players in stealing my money.

Please advise,

this

it’s all a bit sketchy

not our circus though so i’d just bow out as i’m doing!

You could submit a dsar to the bank to see what may have happened in your name with this account. If anyone impersonated you it should be evident but given how much time has passed whether you will get any redress I'm not so sure.

Understand that if you get the bank to investigate this they are likely to involve police. Your sister could be prosecuted. As so much time has passed I don't know that you'd get the money back, unless your sister has savings and you take her to court to force her to pay up. She won't be able to pay from her wages because she's going to automatically lose her job and career if she has a conviction for financial fraud against her name.

The bank are unlikely to give you the money back because you have a duty to mitigate any losses, including informing the bank as soon as you realise there's been a loss of a passbook/bank card/you've seen fraudulent activity on your account/you know someone else has your password or PIN number etc. This gives the bank a chance of recovering the money from wherever it went before it is spent or transferred elsewhere, so they can compensate you without losing out themselves. You've failed to comply with this rule by not mentioning to the bank, for several decades, that someone else has access to your banking passbook, and that you'd been a victim of financial abuse by your dad and had never had access to this account that's in your name.

@TheSandgroper the financial ombudsman doesn't have chats with people who need advice about things. They are there for raising a complaint about your bank, when your bank has done something wrong, after you've raised the issue with your bank for an in-house investigation and aren't happy with the outcome.

Who paid for you to go to Uni?

Who provided your spending money?

You say you were working and the money was going into that account and you were unable to use it so you must have been given money by your parents?

OP is British.

and in one post she was taken to and from university

but then transpired she moved out and lived at university for her final year, which would inevitably have mean loads of freedom.

It's flogging a dead horse imo

I don’t think this is really about the money so would not pursue.

it was 25 years ago…you could have followed it up at any time / some time in between leaving and now.

i think it is about something much deeper rooted / not the money.

As much as there has been a horrible injustice to you here, if you are not likely to get the money back, and cause huge problems for your sister who was also manipulated by your Dad, I would walk away and consider £10k the price you paid to live your life freely, and it was worth it.

Back then there were grants available.

i’m 43
no grant when i went