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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To tell you all to check your bank accounts very carefully!

120 replies

SeaMagic · 04/11/2015 22:26

... particularly if you deposit cheques in the automated machine thingy.

You know the one that bank staff encourage and cajole their customers to use as it means you will have less of a wait [and they do not have to employ so many actual people/counter staff].

Bloody Barclays. This has happened to me TWICE now. I usually use the counters to deposit cheques as I have previously had cheques to the value of £300 go missing and not credited to my account when I dropped them in the machine. Luckily I had a receipt and was able to prove that I had deposited the cheques... but it took Barclays forever to investigate and they were so blasé and non-apologetic

Now I have found it has happened again. Against my better judgement I deposited £400 worth of cheques in the automated machine about 2 months ago. I was in a rush, the queue was immense, I thought what's the chances of my cheques going missing again? Well, it appears that they have. I have just found the receipt tucked in my diary and thought I would check my statements to ensure it has actually been paid in... to discover I can't find it anywhere on any statement. Ring telephone banking, chap on the other end also can't find it anywhere. Has passed it on to the complaint team, will take 48 hours for them to investigate apparently.

I tell the telephone banking guy I want to make a complaint. He has given me a generic Barclays address to complain to. No thanks, I want a real person, preferably someone with authority to hear my story. Does anyone know who I should take my complaint to?

I am feeling mighty pissed off but also rather concerned as some branches are now fully automated, i.e. no counter staff just machines. These sort of mistakes are completely unacceptable imo. Yes, I probably should have checked my receipt earlier but in the general busyness of life it just got overlooked. It is also possible that my receipt might have gotten lost and then I would have struggled to prove I even deposited money into the machine! I have quite a few clients who pay me via cheque and I am now wondering if I need to tell them that I no longer accept this method of payment.

So please everyone, look after your receipts for depositing cheques and also make sure your money has actually been deposited into your account!

OP posts:

thatstoast · 04/11/2015 22:31

I would look into moving your business away from cheques. They probably won't exist in 5 years anyway.

janethegirl2 · 04/11/2015 22:32

Just stand in the queue and pay in at the counter, or post the cheques in along with your payment slip.

MatildaTheCat · 04/11/2015 22:33

You are NBU. I put in a cheque for £550 and it was creditted as £5.50. The slip printed by the machine showed this mistake but the 'troubleshooter' on the bank shop floor told me not to worry because the mistake would be picked up back stage. Right.

After an hour on the phone I gave up and had to go back to insist this was sorted. So, no, not unreasonable. Banks have a way to go in their quest to get rid of staff and employ machines to handle our hard earned money.

janethegirl2 · 04/11/2015 22:34

I use cheques all the time although I do have telephone banking. I will not use internet banking. The drawback with telephone banking is that there is a 10k limit on daily transactions which is a pain if the amount you want to transfer exceeds that amount.

IrritableBitchSyndrome · 04/11/2015 22:35

Got sick of Barclays and having a much better experience with Nationwide. Barclays were very unconcerned with customer service, I found. Although very hot on potential fraud, which was good, in the interests of balance and fairness!

MatildaTheCat · 04/11/2015 22:35

Jane, in our branch you are ruthlessly farmed into queues depending on your reason for visiting.

SomethingOnce · 04/11/2015 22:35

I knew I was right not to trust those paying-in machines!

confusedandemployed · 04/11/2015 22:36

And, back to the point of the thread, which was I think a gripe about the way banks encourage you to use these anonymous deposit points and then promptly fail to deposit your money- if they lose the bloody cheques then what's the point having them.
OP I hear you. Banks are the lowest common denominator these days. As for someone with authority....hahahahahahaha. Computer says no.

janethegirl2 · 04/11/2015 22:39

I'm lucky in that my branch doesn't do that Matilda, but I do tend to post any cheques I get directly to the branch and that seems to work consistently.

Original poster

SeaMagic · 04/11/2015 22:41

I just wonder how many times this sort of thing happens and the payee doesn't realise.

I think I check all my receipts... but it is possible that on occasion I have forgotten one, or it has gotten lost...

OP posts:

Yambabe · 04/11/2015 22:42

Funny, was thinking the same thing. I have a couple of clients who pay by cheque, and my business account (with Santander) doesn't let you pay in over the counter, you have to either put them in a special envelope and use a Santander ATM (bit of a faff because to get to the nearest one I lose at least 2 hours of my working day :( ) or send it by post in a prepaid 1st class envelope. I sent 2 cheques in separate envelopes this week, both posted Sunday night to catch the 9am post on Monday. Neither showing on my online banking yet. Not happy!

Original poster

SeaMagic · 04/11/2015 22:43

But if you post your cheques Jane then you don't have a receipt?

So if the bank loses your cheques how do you prove you ever sent them?

Some cheques you might be able to get re-issued... but others might be tricky, i.e. if the company that sent it to you has closed up shop or the payer is uncontactable..

OP posts:

Bassetfeet · 04/11/2015 22:50

Dealing with Barclays if anything goes wrong is horrendous . Their fault becomes your fault . Hours on the phone being passed around if you have the time and tenacity to get a result of sorts .
They eventually kind of sort their mistake . Then you look at your statement and see they have charged you anyway for rogue overdraft that you didn't make .

janethegirl2 · 04/11/2015 22:54

Never had a problem with posting cheques, ok I could have, but if it's for significant money, I put it through the letter box. Although I tend to photocopy the cheques first.

janethegirl2 · 04/11/2015 22:55

Obviously the receipt system isn't working so why use it?

cannotlogin · 04/11/2015 22:57

I had some serious issues with Barclays last year - there was an attempted fraud on my account via a telephone banking method and they called me on my home phone during the day when I was out to check it out. I didn't realise till 48 hours later (as I really don't get calls on the landline anymore) by which time they had frozen all my accounts - I am a single parent with no support and all of my money (at that time) was with them. I had to go into the bank with ID to sort it - which I did, at considerable stress as work can be difficult to get out of. They told me all was well but the next time I tried my card, it wouldn't work. I phoned them- they told me it was sorted but would need to wait for the 'system' to update overnight....and so on and so on. This went on for 3 weeks - each time they assured me it was sorted and each time it wasn't.

Eventually, I phoned and simply said could I please close my account as I had had no access to my money for a month and they were additonally refusing to pay my bills (council tax, car insurance and house insurance all went unpaid) despite the fact there was several thousand in my current account. It only got sorted then by a woman who had me pay for something on amazon whilst I sat on the phone to her ('cos as far as she was concerned, the payment would go through) and she saw it decline there and then...then it got sorted. But it still took another 48 hours. They gave me £150 in compensation but had the cheek to charge me for the refused direct debits! I got another £50 out of that.

Sorry....massive rant! I have moved emergency money elsewhere and have remained loyal to Barclays for other reasons. But the moral of the story is...threaten to close and see what happens. If they value your business (and assuming you are generally in credit, you should be), they will sort the issue out.

DixieNormas · 04/11/2015 22:57

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

leghoul · 04/11/2015 22:58

this happened to me in HSBC on more than one occasion when paying in at the desk -

janethegirl2 · 04/11/2015 22:59

I have had absolutely no issues with Barclays ever.

SlightF0x · 04/11/2015 22:59

tangent, but after I moved to Ireland, Barclays just sent me a letter telling me that there'd been no activity on my account for 18 months so they'd shut down my current account. When I was next back in the UK I asked them if they'd transferred the £170 in to my savings account, and they said no. That money, just gone. I told people about that and they don't believe me. "no!!!! that couldn't happen!" I've been told.

It really did How dare they!? I could accept them closing my current account if they'd sent a cheque or put it in to my savings account. They just shrugged.

SantasLittleMonkeyButler · 04/11/2015 23:00

I'm with Barclays & our branch also has a member of staff walking up & down the queue asking "anyone just paying in?" Anyone who makes eye contact says yes is taken over to the machine & shown how to use it. I always say no. I've never had anything go missing to date but much prefer the reassurance of seeing it processed by someone in front of you.

Now, if the "anyone just paying in?" person were to open another window, they may not have such a queue in the first place.

ouryve · 04/11/2015 23:01

This happened to me in Lloyds, once. Worse, it dawned on me when I couldn't find the cheque on the statement that I didn't have a receipt for it, either - it was the first time I'd used the machine.

The second time I used it, the cheque just got spat back out again.

I went back to paying the cheque I get (unavoidable - it's the only way these people will pay me) at the counter, only to get marched back to the machine. They've even stopped putting deposit envelopes out, forcing people to use the infernal machine.

Shakey15000 · 04/11/2015 23:01

YANBU. If the bank wants and encourages customers to use the system then it should bloody well work. Or at least, if a mistake is made it should be resolved quicker.

I don't do internet banking (don't trust it). I have a credit card bill I pay every month by going into the bank and no amount of cajoling gets me to do it any other way than over the counter.

OddBoots · 04/11/2015 23:01

I moved away from Barclays a while back and this is one of the reasons. The Nationwide system is much better, you pay the cheques in at the cashpoint but it puts a scanned image of each cheque on the receipt.

TheSilveryPussycat · 04/11/2015 23:10

DD paid in a cheque and the machine misread the numeral 5 for a 3, even though the amount in words clearly said "five". Took a while to sort, and it was just luck she noticed fairly quickly.

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