IANBU to give Barclays what for!

[FV45]

I paid in a cheque in US$ to our joint bank account.
The cheque is payable to me, paid in by me.

They send a letter to Mr R FV45 about it.

I am fuming! How can a bank in this day and age default to the man for a joint bank account?

We are mid divorce so I am reacting strongly (he was all aggressive about it - probably didn't read that it was money IN) but FFS!

Anyway, it had galvanised me into moving the bills to my account since I pay for everything anyway.

I wonder what their response will be when I call tomorrow.

Is his name first on the account? If so its a default I believe.

I've had this with my bank before, and is was literally because he put his name first on the application.

It's shitty I agree, I think they send communications based on the account not the customer.

How weird - we have joint accounts with Lloyds and HSBC and everything we get from them is addressed to both of us. I think my name is first, but that could be alphabetical.

Yabu to start of fuming

Yanbu to call and calmly ask why this has happened and how they can prevent it happening next time. Could be a typo (I once wrote to a dead person about their living spouse instead of to the living spouse about the deceased by accident) or a quirk of the system that defaults to the first named holder

OK, that's not great.

I'll tell you something to make you laugh though.

When my ExH told me he was leaving me, we made an appointment to open a bank account for me, and remove me from the joint account. That appointment happened to be on m pay day. I had arranged to leave work early to do this and got paid by cheque. He popped in at lunch time, offering to take the cheque and put it into what was going to be his account! Guess my reply, I'm sure you can!

There's usually a main holder and another holder on joint accounts. Mail gets sent to the main holder by default usually

Bit of an overreaction I think

If you didn't want him to know about it, why did you pay it into the joint account?

I have no problem with him knowing, I'm just pissed off with Barclays.

Under my circumstances I feel I am entitled to over react. I have a thread in Relationships (which I appreciate you don't know about).

Under my circumstances I feel I am entitled to over react

Aren't 'over react' and 'unreasonable' very nearly synonymous?

Yes, you're being unreasonable. It could be because Mr comes before Mrs alphabetically. I get all letters from the bank where we have our savings and current accounts. That's because when we got married and combined our money, my bank was more suitable than his so his name was added to my account, if you see what I mean. It suits him down to the ground as I'm not even sure he knows which bank his salary's paid into!

Isn;t there a main person and then the 'joint' person or is it different on yours?

In all honesty I think it's an over-reaction. If it's the former of my first sentence especially. I wouldn't be fuming, I'll save that for the person who called me a cunt today or the other daily things that are more fume worthy that a letter titled wrongly.

Perhaps banks should just put Mr/Mrs, but then people would perhaps complain about Mrs so maybe just the surname.

Why is the joint bank account operational when you are divorcing? Barclays will stop the account as soon as they hear that you are splitting up. I would ensure that you have an account up and running in your sole name before you do anything else.

Yes, be careful what you say. They may very well freeze the account and only pay out on joint signatures once they hear there is to be a divorce. Open your own account and get stuff sorted before you go in to Barclays and tell them, you could shoot yourself in the foot here.

I told them we were divorcing ages ago, and again when I requested 12 months of statements not so long ago. They said nothing about freezing the account. While we are still married do they have a right to freeze it?

Where did you get this information from?

If you're in the UK, I'd be worried about having paid in a US$ check. From scare stories I've read, if the bank thinks you have a connection with the US, they might summarily close your account and put you on a blacklist so you can't open another account at any UK bank.

(I suppose it's just possible that the scare stories about bank aversion to customers with US links are overstated. Though there was one story where the reported facts were exactly as I describe, according to the person who paid in the cheque.)

Here's the story I was thinking of. Haven't re-read to see if I remembered it correctly.

www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/bank-accounts/12039897/I-paid-a-US-cheque-into-my-Barclays-account-and-became-unbankable.html

Note the bank in question was Barclays!

Have now re-read, he did already have an alternative account when his Barclays one was closed, and did eventually manage to open a further bank account, after initially being turned down because of the Barclays blacklisting. So not as bad as I thought.

Just called them.
I don't know where some of you get your information from, but there is no suggestion of freezing the account mid-divorce. My understanding was that I need to move my DDs to my own account, then once there is no activity in the joint account we go in (separately if we wish), with ID and stuff and request the account be closed. They confirmed this today.

They took my complaint seriously and apologised and have registered my complaint. Again, this is as I would expect.

I have paid in US$ cheques quite a few times (for MUCH lower amounts that in that article!) and there has never been a problem. I have opened new accounts since without any problem, as well as got credit.

Glad to hear all is OK.

I see in the comments below that article someone suggested that it was because the amount was more than $10,000, which would generate a report to US authorities. So maybe that's the difference. (Or maybe Barclays are just inconsistent.)

It's not the divorce itself that can spook a bank, but the idea that there might be a dispute between the two account holders about the funds in an account. And you sounded a bit disputatious earlier 😄

Oh that there were any funds in the account!!

I've worked in a bank for over 20 years (not Barclays). We always stop a joint account, if the account holders have split up and get them to open individual accounts. We will then only operate the account on two signatures. I'm amazed to hear that Barclays don't do this.

How do you define split up sunny?
We are still living in the same house, are still married please not for much longer

I've informed them we are divorcing. As far as I know my stbx hasn't. Would they freeze an account on my say so?

You'll get an apology and some flowers. What they usually do.
it doesn't change anything, it's the way they do business, unfortunately.
have some off me It's crap, I know.

Yes we would stop the account and seek clarification about what was going on. It is not unusual for one of the parties to attempt to clean out the account I have had to try and help numerous people over the years that this has happened to. We also have customers who split up and get back together every few weeks, but we have to go through the same procedure each time