Anyone with a Barclays account needs to close it down!

[ComedyGuns]

This is just absolutely awful - I can’t believe that Barclays (and Lloyds) with all their money, are willing to just ruin this poor woman’s life, just because they can.

She should start a crowdfunding page, but she probably doesn’t know how. My heart goes out to her…

Calls to repay £125k to woman after banking error https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjezxvpd9xno

I think the point they're making is the cheque was written when her partner was still alive, but she didn't notice that it hadn't cashed correctly until after his death - by which point the contents of that bank account are no longer available to her and will presumably go to the next of kin.

So for all intents and purposes it's as if she hasn't cashed the cheque at all. Yes that's through banking error, but if the funds have now been divided up in a will there's not really anything the bank can do - they never had the money to begin with, they can't just pull 125k out of their ass because she didn't look at her receipt or bank balance once between cashing the cheque and her partner's death.

Can’t believe you wouldn’t look at the printed receipt. I once paid a cheque for £50,000 into Santander and it was it through as £500. I immediately told the cashier to rectify it. Who would be that blase with that kind of money?

It just sounds completely dodgy.

I mean she gets hom to.wrote her a huge cheque while he is on his death bed???

Why cant she just claim it from.his estate?

Obviously was trying to get money we don't if she was entitled to it or not.

Another report here with a bit more background.

www.theargus.co.uk/news/25646134.sussex-woman-left-125k-pocket-barclays-error/

Terminally ill partner wrote Ms Beevers a cheque for £125k in late October 2023. She paid it into Barclays who miskeyed it as £125.

She didn't raise the issue with Barclays until January 2024 by which time the partner had died. Whatever funds were in the Lloyds Account in October by January 2024 there was not enough to meet the liability.

I wonder if the value of cheque, presumably handwritten, was not as clear on its face as is now suggested which might explain why the bank's reconciliations did not identify the discrepancy.

Lots to consider here.

1. person is terminally ill and writes a cheque for £125K payable to his partner just before he dies. Why would he do that? Why not make sure his will is up to date instead?
2. partner pays cheque into her account in branch. Doesn't look at the receipt to check her balance. Really? If I paid that much money into my account I’d be checking straight away.
3. receives notification from bank of £125 deposit, not £125K and waits A MONTH before contacting the bank about it. No, most people would be found there like a shot.
4. there appears to be either £125k - £125 missing from the deceased bank account, OR there was never enough money in their account to honour the cheque in the first place. Hence the offer of compensation from Barclays - they entered the wrong amount but there were insufficient funds anyway so the cheque would have bounced and the woman would have been notified of this.
5. If the missing money has been distributed by the deceased executor, then they are the people that should be chased for the money.

So we shouldn’t close our Barclays accounts after all?

Even the media get it wrong.
The couple made the decision to close their account and cash the cheque so that Pam could move from her flat into a bungalow.
Pam's partner passed away in November 2023, but she said she only realised the error in January 2024 when she went to cash the cheque at Barclays

If they ‘made the decision to close their account’, why would he need to write her a cheque?
The cheque was dated 26/10, paid in on 27/10 and he died in November. So she did not go to cash the cheque in January 2024.
https://www.itv.com/news/meridian/2025-11-20/barclays-banking-error-leaves-resident-125000-out-of-pocket
This MP is being made a fool of.

Has anyone seen a picture of the cheque?

I can understand not looking at the reciept - I once cashed a cheque for £10 and realised it was put through as £100 when I checked my account later (far lower stakes tbf, and a far more pleasant surprise). All of this reads a bit strange to me though, I can understand why Barclays aren't paying out when it isn't even their money to give, presumabely she needs to take it up with Lloyds or the executor

The Ombudsman's decision (assuming this is it, they're anonymous but the circumstances are identical) sheds more light on the sequence of events.

https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/decision/DRN-5364091.pdf

It’s in this article

https://www.itv.com/news/meridian/2025-11-20/barclays-banking-error-leaves-resident-125000-out-of-pocket

Right so an error on Barclay’s part, the account has now been emptied to (I assume) his children, and they don’t want to give his partner (I assume not their mother) the money.

@Bromptotoo "Surprised the system allows a cheque to go through for a fraction of its value without it being caught by some reconciliation process."

Yes, that's baffling me too. Surely if you present a cheque for £500 but you only have £50 in the account, the cashier will flag it up. They don't take the cheque for £500 but only give you £50. You'd have to write a new cheque for £50. Or have I misunderstood the everything!

The cashier wouldn't know - they don't check the balance when they bank a cheque, even if it's a cheque from the same bank, and even if they did, they wouldn't be allowed to disclose the drawer's balance to the payee. The cheque would go through clearing as normal, and would be rejected if there were insufficient funds to pay it.

Well, yes, this is it.

I could write you a cheque for £125k right now. But I don’t have £125k in my account. So the bank won’t have to compensate you for it. The money didn’t exist.

At a basic level, if the money was still in the Lloyds account, Barclays would rectify their mistake by requesting the £125k from the Lloyds account.

The issue is that there wasn’t £125k in there (I don’t know how much was) and also presumably complicated by his death and the fact that the money would then be part of his death estate and required to go through probate.

Looking at it, I can see how the mistake could be made.

But that wouldn't have happened when the Barclays cashier accepted the cheque.

Maybe it would have done when it was processed but the woman paying it in wild have had a receipt for £125k

If I'm understanding it correctly Barclays are accepting that their cashier made a mistake on keying in the cheque, nothing to do with how much was or wasn't in the Lloyd's account

Thanks for posting that, it does show how someone whow wasnt checking properly would have made the mistake.

Yes, it does doesn't it? Not enough zeros on the number part...

This. I fail to see how it was Barclays error as they go on the cheque, nit the amount that's tapped in.

My advice is to not post inflammatory threads without all the information 😉

The decimal was in the wrong place and Barclay's should have rejected it as words/figures disagree.

The people who might be looked to to sort this out are those administering the late partner's estate. The Ombo's report suggests they've gone 'non contact' with Ms B.

I suspect there was no love to be lost between her and partner's blood rellies before his death.

How interesting. People often use dots after writing an amount of money on a cheque to stop people adding extra noughts. That combined with the fact that the money wasn’t in the account she was trying to draw it down from makes it quite simple. She’s looking for a pay day.

Ahh it is written too in fairness,,,

To be fair to her, it’s not at all clear that the money wasn’t in the account.

The ombudsman report someone linked upthread said that they closed their joint account which had £125k in it, and it went into his account. He then immediately wrote a cheque to her, which she took to the bank the next day.

When she discovered the error a couple of months later is when there wasn’t money in the account to be paid out. The ombudsman suggests she takes the issue up with the estate/executors.