Bank replaced my name on my accounts with that of another customer

[thebankingindustrycandoone]

Unbelievably they (the bank) have still not sorted this. I brought it to their attention a week ago at which point they cut off access to funds for myself and my mother, she and I have a joint current account at this bank and I have an ISA and a savings account. Despite many gruelling hours on the phone to them there is no resolution and I keep getting fobbed off with insincere apologies and no time frame for eventual resolution. I have emailed the CEO today so obviously no reply but would like to take my story to the financial press. Chat GPT tells me it’s a data breach. Who should i email with the story. TIA

Sounds awful. I’d start here. The. Maybe email Martin Lewis?!

https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/contact-us

@thebankingindustrycandoone Former Citizens Advice adviser here. Ultimately, you can make a complaint to the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and/or the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) who regulate the banks, but in the first instance you should find your bank's complaints procedure on their website and follow that - you'll need to put your complaint in writing and you typically have to give them 8 weeks to resolve your complaint before taking your complaint to the FCA and/or FOS. These links should help you:
https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/debt-and-money/banking/complaints-about-banks-and-building-societies/
https://www.fca.org.uk/consumers/how-complain
https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/

I do wonder if the bank has denied you access to your accounts because someone else has made a fraudulent request to change the name on your accounts and your bank is trying to protect your funds. Have they given you any information at all about what's going on OP?

Thank you for your replies. I believe the problem occurred when my mum and i opened a joint savings account. The account details were never visible to me on my banking app and despite several calls to the bank this was never sorted and i asked that the account be closed. It now transpires that at the point of opening said account there was a ‘profile merging issue’. This meant/means nothing to me but seems to have resulted in the current problem. I will contact the complaints department again today to try to get my mother’s access sorted. I don’t hold out much hope tho

Try writing to the financial pages of whichever newspaper you read - there are great journalists in the Times/Telegraph/DailyMail etc. Just the start of their involvement can often unlock blockages.