Can i sue Barclays????

[ziglag]

Hi.

I hold a barclays business account, and in January this year i borrowed £9500 from a friend for my business.

She gave me the money as a credit card cheque from her MBNA credit card.
I paid this cheque into my local branch, but the branch thought it could be fraudulent.

as it transpires, barclays bank calls her credit card company who then says "hold on while we try and contact the owner for verification", to confirm she did infact lend me the moneissue the cheque, but someone in barclays bank decides not to credit my account with the money and flag up the transaction as fraudulent - without telling me.

on the 3rd day i called up business banking who tell me that the cheque has not been paid into my account as it is a fraudulent cheque.

i call my friend angry and using all the swear words i can use....... she calls her credit card company and they confirm that they had not told barclays not to pay it and said that barclays bank need to contact them via their channels and they would confirm the cheque is good.


I called barclays bank who tell me that infact they do not need to contact the credit card company as it is not something they do. but in the mean time, they cant find the cheque i paid into the branch! so they have to try and locate the cheque. they direct me to the fraud investigations department... the fraud department say they cant help as they have not received the cheque and are unaware of the situation - it hasnt been passed to them and they dont know why i would be given thier number to call.

two days later, my internet banking stops working.... i called internet banking, they said call your business manager. i called my business manager and she is with a client and i leave a message with a colleage who promised she will call me back within 3hrs. She didnt.

48hours later i cant withdraw from a cash machine and i call my local manager again and as she had still failed to call me back, and she is not available. her collegue says i should call the fraud investigation team because i had "HANDLED A FRAUDULENT CHEQUE".

I called my friend again who then called her bank and they still tell her it is fine, and she has sufficient funds to cover the cheque and that barclays bank is out of line.

i then my friends credit card company and gave them all the info i have about my friend and the situation, just to confirm that she is not messing with me, i got to speak to a manager, - they cant telll me much as it is not my account, but they confirm that they have had calls from my friend and that it is definately not a fraudulent cheque and thay she does had sufficent funds to cover the amount and that she has call them to complain about it. they told me that barclays had not sent the cheque to them for verification, , all barclays did was call them to ask if the account existed and they said they need to verify from the account holder first.

i called the barclays bank fraud investigation team and they tell me that i had handled a fraudulent cheque and that as a result the have FROZEN MY BUSINESS ACCOUNT, AND MY PERSONAL ACCOUNT untill they investigate (which can take up to 6 months, i was told).

i yelled and screamed but they maintained their position. i have staff salaries to pay, i have money paid into my account via our paypall account, i had cheques from client in couldnt present to the bank .... all the money i had was now frozen all because barclays would not call my friends bank to confirm whether or not she actually issued the cheque to me!!!

its 10days and i still dont have any cash, and it end of the month.


Now i gets very interesting...........


As i was pleading and offering to fax over my passport, proof of address, company invoices and formation documents (anything they would have asked for, i would have gladly sent just to convince them that i am not palying games)

my secretary who is Scotish is listening in and then suggest she should speak to them instead... i told her as she is neither a signatory nor director of the business, that they will not speak to her, but as she insists, i gave her the phone and she calls the fraud department.

she tells them exactly what i had said, and says we need to have the account re oppened as we need to pay staff...... to my amazement...

thay didnt ask her for her name in the entire conversation....thay didnt ask for any test question nor take her through security questions!!!!!

she plainly told them about the problem, and that she had spoken to MBNA and they have confirmed that the cheque is legit, and we need to pay staff as its a friday and they said......"okay madam, this has just been a big cock up from the branch and we are reopening all the account..... ...""""



now tell me is this fair??????


i had to pass through a barrage of security question before i got to speak to anyone due to "data protection", i give them all the answers they need and then they pass me to another person and i start giving them all confirmations again..... i get to confirm my name and my grand mothers dogs name, but my secretary calls them and they reopen my account without even asking her who she is???? they start reading out the account numbers of the accounts they are reopening, and not once asked "and who are you and what do you do for the company"???

at one point she says (beleive me she said this to them....) ""......i need to get this account reopened before my boss get back from the meeting..."""""" AND THEY STILL DIDNT ASK... ""SO WHO ARE YOU"""?????


NOW, i dont know if its because my accent is not quiet scotish enough and therefore i have to be doing fraudulent transactions as a hobby,

those few days had cost me my business as the account was reopened late and i had missed a deadline we had worked all winter for. now i have to go work for someone else to make ends meet.!



please tell me.... can i sue barclays ( i have all the records, and i beleive all the conversations with them are recorded)

I didnt want to sue then as i thought.... just let me pay staff and put this ordeal behind me, but i had a loan i owed barclays bank, and now they want to take me to court for a ccj........

[fisicx]

One question, when the process started why didn't you arrange for a bank transfer and cancel the cheque?

I don't know if you can sue but you can report them to the banking ombudsman: financial-ombudsman.org.uk

[Stationery-Direct.co.uk]

If I was you I would write a letter of complaint to their head office and ask them what they feel they should offer you for causing you this problem and to stop you from moving your account elsewhere, don't you get a dedicated business manager with Barclays? I used to and directed all my complaints at her, I used to receive compensation all the time for mistakes they had made.

My main concern would be that it seems anybody could have phoned up and possibly gained access to your account so I would make a BIG deal about this.

I understand that all calls are recorded so you are entitled to ask for transcripts of yours and your secretaries calls to back up your story.

To be honest though, I would not even look to go down the suing route, do you really need this stress and aggravation? See if you can get some compensation for the hassle and leave it at that, believe me I have spent soooo many hours of my life arguing and writing letters that it really isn't worth it in the end, spend some time with your family instead

[ziglag]

Many thanks for your replies.

in reply to "Ficixs", all this happened very suddenly and moved from bad to worse very quickly. i didnt think it could happen to me at all.

Eventually (2 and a half weeks later) the bank cancelled the cheque and i got my friend to pay me the same amount from the same card into my paypal account and it was accepted by paypal and i withdrew it into my Barclays business account 5 days later - really didnt want to take any chances.
in the end, it took me 3 and a half week to get a cheque cleared! plus all the unnecessary aggravation that came with it.


in reply to "stationery-Direct", i will be calling the bank tommorow to see what they can do.
My business manager never seems to be arround when i call. i just keep leaving messages and no call backs.

[Stationery-Direct.co.uk]

Originally Posted by ziglag

My business manager never seems to be arround when i call. i just keep leaving messages and no call backs.

You see straightaway if this was the service that I was receiving then I would note down all correspondence, make an appointment with the Bank Manager and ask him why his staff cannot return calls and are never available. I would then bring up the problem you had with him as this is the icing on the cake, then ask him what he is going to do to keep you as a customer.

They make me so mad, banks and other large companies are a nightmare to deal with, don't get me started on BT, Pipex or PC World