Bank has taken my name off the joint account. Any advise?

[bilblio]

I'm with the Halifax and we got a statement on Saturday. We thought it was for DP's account as it only had his name on so we were panicking about where several payments had gone. A bit more investigating and we realised it was actually our joint account and my name has been taken off it. It's not listed in my online banking now either.

We phoned the bank straight away but they said they couldn't do anything till today. The woman we spoke to today could find no record of it being a joint account, or any changes being made to it, and said it was probably a human or computer error. It's now under investigation, but we won't know anything for 5-7 days.

We rarely use this account but we did pay some cheques into it just after Christmas, and typically this week is the only time in months that I've wanted to write a cheque from that account, but can't.

Thankfully DP and I aren't particular about money, it's all just one pot. But if there had been relationship difficulties. But either way I'm horrified that this can happen. Surely there must be several levels of security to go through to make a change like this?

We're writing a letter of complaint, but does anyone have any advise for what to say? or what our chances of compensation are? It's not cost us any money thankfully, but a weekend of worry and some inconvenience. Has anything like this happened to anyone else?

I've lost all faith in them now though and I'm looking at changing banks to either Lloyds TSB or Yorkshire Bank as I can access them easily (unless someone tells me they're equally rubbish.)

This is very very suss and if they can't explain what's happened I'd be very keen to change banks. In cases when marital breakdown occurs they can't actually take your name off a joint account - they have to close it down and open two sole accounts. It sounds like a computer error to me.

I would go to experian and request a credit file just to make sure nothing untowards is going on in your names.
You can get a file for £2,50.
[[http://www.experian.co.u

www.experian.co.uk/
Bollxs!

i once had my mame on a student accoutn as lady "cod of coddrintgton"

they never asked for proof

Things are a lot tighter when opening accounts these days. They have a lot of rules around 'know your customer' and they have to be able to prove to the regulator that they have made sufficient checks to prove the person is who they say they are.

I'd not even considered that it might be a fraudulent thing, just thought it was them messing up... again. I've been with them since I was a kid with no problems, but the last 3 years we've just had problem after problem.

Thanks I didn't think to check my credit report. I'll get that done now.

If you are having continual problems I would say that it seems that they are confusing you with another client, maybe yuo should look at transferring your account.

I pretty confident I'm not being confused with anyone else. Both my names are very very unusual. www.yournotme.com Says I'm unique.

I'm definitely going to open another account elsewhere though. We deal with our local branch in town but it isn't a full branch So whenever things go wrong we have to go to the bigger branch in the next town. It's extra hassle to get to, costs us money to park, and it's really frustrating trying to explain to the people there what's gone on, when it's probably our local branch who have caused the error.

If the bank don't give you any satisfaction, then tell them you will go to the police. That will light a fire under their asses.

My nana (albeit in Dublin) had something like this happen to her and money went missing. They tried to insist she'd withdrawn it and so my uncle said if they didn't sort it within 48 hours, he'd report the "theft" to the police. They sorted it that day.

The thing with bank fraud is that the banks deal with it (ie if your card is cloned), but they don't usually/ always involve the police. You have every right to say that a fraud has occurred on your account (your name was removed without your permission). Money doesn't have to go missing for it to be fraud afaik.

Again I really think this is some kind of systems error as banking systems shouldn't let you take someone's name off an account - this is basic banking standard stuff. I would be really keen to understand how their systems work and, if this is something they can do, I would be very wary about continuing with a relationship with them.