More of a warning re Cheques

More of a warning re Cheques

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A warning to all who bank with or receive cheques from Barclays Bank. Barclays has dishonoured a cheque which my mother made out on what I think is a ridiculous reason. She was making the cheque out to repay her mortgage. The Halifax said she should make it payable to herself and she initially wrote "self" as the payee. The Halifax said that she must instead write her name, which she did, crossing out the "self" and initialling it.

The Halifax were happy with the cheque (and yes they did check it). Barclays however have dishonoured it (purely) because they say if she made a mistake she should have provided a FULL SIGNATURE against the alteration, and not just the initials.

No amount of pointing out that the alteration was made in the same pen, in the same handwriting, that "self" is the same as her when making out her cheque and that the transaction was to be made to an account where she regularly made payments would satisfy Barclays. She had to go to a branch to make the transfer and then some 20 old year old that looked as gormless as the lad in the Barclays insurance ad deliberately wasted time and then just missed the time deadline for transfers that day.

This is the same bank that asked me to authorise a payment out of her account (of course I wasn't authorised to do so) and disclosed my banking details to her when I once went overdrawn to secure a guarantee from her over my account. They also regularly accept cheques altered in this way for other accounts which I bank.

Needless to say I shall not be banking with them anymore, nor will my mother. We will also be taking any small claims action required to recover all the charges both banks are now trying to charge. I know all banks have their problems but the attitude of the counter staff and call centre staff has really been beyond belief. I would suggest that no-one accept any altered cheques on a Barclays account.
Rachel

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By AnonymousUser
16th Feb 2007 09:15

Well that's nothing - you should try Lloyds TSB......
.........one of our clients has been involved in one way correspondence with their business bankers (from them TO the bank) and as a result now has dealings with four separate departments within that bank. The situation escalated so much that we insisted on the the bank's local area director's office taking control as a coordinating point of contact (as recommended in a recent Sunday Times "Money" article).

Several months later (following numerous incidents of confirmation of letters from us being received, but later denied, and continued maladministration of the client's various accounts) even the local director's office are not replying to e-mails or correspondence - they say it is not their fault their colleagues have made mistakes......are LloydsTSB perfecting the art of "passing the buck"?

One bank we will NOT be recommending to any of our 700 business clients is LloydsTSB - not one "for the journey"!

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By listerramjet
13th Feb 2007 12:07

sounds like
a clear case of bad customer service, and I would urge you to make a complaint to the bank and the ombudsman.

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By User deleted
14th Feb 2007 16:40

Same here
Well in a similar circumstance. I went for a remortage with Woolwich (v minimum amount approx 20% LTV) and it dragged on and on for months. I was adamant in getting sorted particularly as they had charged me a valuation and arrangement fee. It has put me off Barclays for life!

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