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

Our bank, a business account, once paid the date rather than the amount which was obviously a big 8 figure number! This was in the 1990’s. It was soon spotted though and they did apologise, while not quite admitting it was their fault!

It all sounds rather suspicious and murky

I think the FOS response is fair to be honest. It’s unfortunate and it was Barclays mistake but it’s not their fault the account no longer had enough funds (if it ever did) by the time she noticed months later!

Loads of people, not everyone is as diligent as you, I'm sure I've probably done the same although not for such a huge sum. It's easy to assume the person you're dealing with has done their job correctly.

I don't find that surprising

If he wanted her to get cash he should have married her or changed his will.

Instead he writes her a cheque on his deathbed.

Yes, that makes sense.

With the extra information being posted it seems to be that the money was in the account when the cheque was paid into Barclays but was no longer there when the mistake was discovered

Had the Barclays cashier entered the correct information the money most likely would have moved to her account

I think Barclays are culpable and are dodging that now by muddying the waters with an inheritance dispute

If the man hasn't died I assume the mistake would have come to light sooner and would have been rectified and the woman would have the full amount

So can I suggest you get the thread deleted then.

The money will still be in the partner's account (if it was ever there) and if she can prove the debt, would be paid to her from his estate.

I'm amazed an MP would get involved in this.

She paid it in, knew about the error and waited a couple of months before going to ask about it?

Surely there should have been no need for a cheque at all. Internet banking normally doesn't allow transfers that big, though you can make several transfers over a period of days, but in branch it can be easily done. They would have had to go to Lloyds to make the transfer and would have been grilled about why the transfer was being made and where the money was from, even as an online transaction I would expect a large sum to be queried, especially as it does look a bit like money laundering,. Then not to check the transfer has taken place is very strange, do people really leave £125k in a current account paying 0%?

So if the partner never had the money to pay to the woman in the story, and the cheque would have bounced if it was processed correctly, why on earth is the MP getting involved?

I know, and I’m sure many of us were just on the verge of doing it!! Goodness op take this as a lesson in critical thinking.

Sure.

While this isn't the point of the thread, why on earth if their plan was that the money ultimately ended up in her account did they not either get the joint account funds moved directly, or at least split it? Why all this fannying around with cheques?

To hide where the money was from, or where it was going? Seems highly suspect to me.

The ombudsman is correct. The money is still with the estate/executors (assuming the mkney was ever in the account) So it's between the partner and the executors.

There must be so much more to this. Who writes a cheque for £125k and who banks a cheque for £125k without checking the receipt and/or the account?

At the very least it sounds like some sort of tax dodge.

Exactly, it sounds as though there's more to this, perhaps a desire to avoid scrutiny or perhaps a deliberate attempt to fiddle something.

I should point out that I was alerted by a supposedly thoroughly researched BBC article, that turns out to have left all but the most sensationalist points out.

It took going on ChatGPT to fill in the gaps…

I would be curious to know why the MP didn't come to conclusions people here have and why any number of other continuents' issues were prioritised ahead of this.

Does anyone know anything about him or what his agenda might be?

The clue was in the £63 - divisible by 9 means someone switched some numbers round by mistake (transposition error).

Nothing surprises me with the bank's cheque clearance procedures. We once had a cheque stolen out of our office cheque book. It was scalpelled off at the binding so it wasn't obvious. By the time we realised, someone had used it to buy £3k worth of computer equipment with no checks done in store and the bank cleared the cheque too, despite the signature showing "Joe Bloggs & Co", rather than "John Smith", the only person that was authorised to sign the cheques.

In this case it seems that there's a few issues:

• the cashier that made the mistake in the first place - not sure how you can type £125, instead of £125,000 - was the cheque difficult to read/not clear?
• the fact that the partner died before she realised - obviously she wasn't in his will, so if the £125k did exist in the first place, it was then, rightly, given to his beneficiaries
• Barclays can't pay this woman £125k that they don't have - it's not like they took £125k from the man's Lloyds account but only gave her £125.
• I'm also not clear on the "her partner had closed his account at Lloyds and that she would cash the cheque" bit. If he closed his account, Lloyds would give him a cheque for the balance. I doubt they'd raise a cheque in someone else's name.

Something about this all really doesn't add up to me. She banked the cheque in October 2023, he died in November and then she contacted the bank in January?

I don't have a Barclays account, but I wouldn't be closing it right now as a result of this.

The ombudsman report says they closed their joint account and the money went into his personal account, and he then wrote her a cheque. The account that was closed was not the same account that the cheque was written from.

She does have a claim against the executors. It's unlikely probate would have been granted that quickly, they should have spotted the closed account and queried it, when the estate was being valued and even after probate has been granted the estate is liable for any debts, indeed a solicitor will often delay distribution until satisfied there are no outstanding debts, as they will be liable then.

I worked in a bank in the 80s surely today there is a method of locating cheques, there must be. We had microfiches back then there must be a 2025 version. I haven’t read the full thread but someone must have seen the original cheque and can check against his bank statement at that time.

If he was of sound mind he could have checked it himself and told her the money hadn't gone out.