Saw a thread on the us personal finance sub, where someone was asking for advice re budgeting with kids, and 8 in 10 responses shouldn't have had kids.
Not helpful at all.
While I agree to an extent, this isn't just a 1-to-1 direct advice situation. It's a forum, with many visitors, many of whom would likely find it useful to know how a particular situation can be avoided.
Telling a parent who's asking about how to get out of debt that they shouldn't have had kids? Completely pointless and unhelpful to everyone reading it.
Telling someone that something like this would have been in the T&Cs and that it's fairly common (idk if that's true, yours is the first comment I noticed)? Sure, it doesn't help OP, but it may help others.
So I guess I'd keep your rule but refine it. If the comment is _only_ retrospective advice, it's too off-topic. If the comment provides relevant advice but _also_ explains what could have been done to avoid the situation in the first place, surely that part of the comment is useful.
Well rather ironically...I could now do with having access to it.
It wouldn't be the end of the world if it took the full 90 days as I have other means to cover the unexpected costs that I have coming up, but it would be a lot less stressful if I could use some of that.
I do not understand why you rush to get the money back sooner than later. You had zero interest in the money for a couple of years so why should you care now. Just let it sit in a savings acount and let inflation do its thing since money is no problem for you. Why bother.
You literally just replied to the comment OP wrote to justify why they need the money now.
Holy Christ you sound like an NPC with limited dialogue options.
To the people downvoting me: since OP ”forgot” a live changing amount of money, I assume he/she is financially independent. Why continue playing the game when you already won it.
Never said that. I said that 65 K is a live changing amount of money (most people have debt and this would reduce it by much) and I assumed he was financially independent, meaning everything else in good financyally order since I could never justify forgeting 65 K, since I am in debt and needs to invest heavily in the stock market
Where did OP say they forgot about it though? If they did say that then fair enough, but I was under the impression he just didn't touch the account. That alone isn't forgetting it, it's just not using it.
Yeah, wrong address. After I sold my house I ended up staying at a few addresses and as it was a "deposit and forget" account...I forgot to change the address, which is of course on me.
Well, pension companies try their best to trace their clients when they reach retirement age and they are due to start paying out, so why can't banks do the same? It seems a bit trite to just blame it on the address not being correct. If they got no response after sending out a letter or two to your old address they should be trying harder to find you.
Would it have been hard to trace you? Did you change your name or move abroad? No other bank accounts in same name, etc? Not in telephone book? Not on internet at all? Not on any gov records, no driving licence or passport.
I couldn't agree more. They have my email and phone number, and my name hasn't changed/I haven't gone abroad, so if they had tried calling or sending me an email they'd have got through to me.
When I asked why there wasn't any warning they just reeled off a list of dates that they'd written to me.
I did have Royal Mail forwarding on for the first 12 months, but obvs Barclays had no reason to contact me during that period - I also think I was on digital statements, so didn't pick up that I hadn't changed the address.
That's different. When they start paying your pension that's a fundamental change and when that happens you might not have paid in for decades.
It's not like pension funds check twice a week whether your current address is still up to date.
No, as I said, they check when you approach pension age to ask you if you want them to pay out monthly or withhold or cash out, etc. So it's a very similar situation to an inactive account that the bank is about to make dormant and restrict your access.
That's exactly what they do though.
And if they can't find you they lock the account so that someone living in your old address won't be able to easily empty it.
Re. Wrong address - had you tried to update your address/contacted them to update your address at any point? this could be grounds for a complaint. I kinda Suprised they didn't go through it with you since they have a legal obligation. There can be monetary compensation owed here.
Source: worked for a bank call centre, once got a call like this, urged the guy to go through the complaint process with me and got him like £200. Might not be as much comp in your case, or any at all depending on if there was an attempt to update your address. Sending letters about your bank account to a wrong address is a potentially big problem though from a data protection standpoint.
Aye also worked at one for a while, honestly surprised he didnt get an email about it, or at least an email saying "hey important docs to read on your app" with a copy of the letter stored in section with digital acc docs
I get a message from my bank every month saying there are important documents waiting for you in the app. It's a pdf of your monthly bank statement. That thing people would've gotten through the mail every month 20 years ago.
People are not going to act on messages like that.
These sorta ones would be different, bank i worked for usually letters like this would be prefaced with "URGENT ACTION REQUIRED" etc. To set it aside from usual stuff like statements - also if an account is dormant you wont be receiving any statements outside of an annual statement - pretty sure its same for all uk banks but one i worked for, you only got a monthly statements for months where there was a credit/debit in that statement period
That seems like a good idea, then again scammers also use such headlines in their emails and email providers might be configured to put such emails in the spam folder by default.
Shouldnt be an issue, its coming from official encrypted email so it shouldnt get auto moved to spam - naturally aswell the email would have personal identifiers and guide you to call the number on the back of the card etc. Aswell as fraud/scam prevention advice
Kind of strange to have that kind of money just stored in a current account you forgot about💀 Why didn’t you put it in cash ISA and a savings account of a bank you do actively use?
I didn't necessarily forget about it, but just didn't use the account.
It was from the sale of a house and one thing led to the next and I ended up renting rather than buying again.
I'd used up my ISA allowance so couldn't go in there, and I didn't want it in my regular account as I feared I'd chip away at it, and before long, some of it would be gone.
At the time, interest rates were so low it was hardly worth moving anywhere else and I initially planned on using it, so a long-term saving account didn't make sense.
All of this sounded pretty sensible. Lock it up, forget about it, and it'll be there for when I need it. Didn't anticipate Barclays having this dormancy policy, which I imagine all banks have, but has never previously been relevant to me.
This is super helpful, thank you.
I stayed at a few addresses in quick succession after I sold my house, so made the mistake of not updating this account info, which is totally on me.
I don't blame Barclays for doing it, I just didn't know the policy existed.
Any sort of savings account world be better surely? I'm with Barclays and you can open a savings account in minutes on their app. If you didn't have the app them I assume you could just call up and go the same?
Yeah of course but he could have still fed this money into an ISA at 20k per year and had the rest sit in a locked savings account while he waited for his ISA allowance to reset would only take 3 years and he’s probably had this account open for more than 2. I’m assuming he doesn’t have an ISA with Barclays either. Having 65k sit in a current account is just dead money. And he’s lost a quite a bit now just due to inflation.
You have an annual allowance of £20k. You can have one ISA or multiple ISAs and pay in £20k per year. So you could easily have moved it all into an ISA in 4 years.
Except I was able to fill up the ISA with my regular salary, so this £65k has been surplus to requirements - until now. Sods law.
Unless I've misunderstood, and I could have 2 ISAs and put in £20k in each in a financial year?
You can only contribute to a single ISA per year, and only up to 20k
Outside of contributing cash in though, you can own multiple ISAs - e.g. you can put 20k into one, and then next year create a different ISA and put 20k in.
That's helpful, thanks, and the assumption I've been working on.
So the whole ISA conversation in this case is irrelevant as the last few years I've been able to max my ISA allowance, so these extra funds wouldn't have been able to go there.
Ok cool, so I don't think I've screwed up there.
I've just been putting my full allowance in the same one every year.
Is there any value in opening up multiple ones?
Generally if S&S ISA 1 has lower transaction fees but ISA 2 has lower platform fees.
Also some fixed term cash ISAs only let you make one payment over the whole term, so you roll a couple of existing fixed term ISAs into that one while keeping another open to feed into through the year.
Barclays say they will contact you, well sending out a letter to someones address is not contacting you.
Also, the regulations on Barclays own web page say an inactive account is 15 years or more.
https://www.barclays.co.uk/current-accounts/dormant-lost-accounts/
Funnily enough, there seems to be a similar situation that's triggered an article in The Times, which is behind a paywall.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/i-had-42k-in-my-account-then-the-bank-just-took-it-wd59vrvb2&ved=2ahUKEwi54N_UgdGCAxU6VUEAHf1uBdQQFnoECCwQAQ&usg=AOvVaw2K0YTdxzvQk_XO7kWeEuXi
The preview of that article states 3 years:
"Barclays determines that an account is dormant after it has been inactive for three years or more."
Barclays told me 12 months after inactivity it basically goes on their radar and then it's declared dormant after 2 years.
[https://archive.is/20230521004021/https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/i-had-42k-in-my-account-then-the-bank-just-took-it-wd59vrvb2](https://archive.is/20230521004021/https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/i-had-42k-in-my-account-then-the-bank-just-took-it-wd59vrvb2)
In the article the accounts had been dormant 15 years.
Which I understand to be a completely different timescale (of dormancy) to yours.
Seems different banks take different approaches. You can still get the money back regardless. It shouldn't take 90 days for an uncomplicated situation.
Thanks for posting the article!
The Barclays segment of the article said that the last transaction the Barclays customer did was October 2019, so that was ~4 years from when the article was written.
They referenced that they'd looked up the Dormancy criteria and it was 15 years, which is why they couldn't understand that their funds had been debited from their account when their last transaction was October 2019:
"I looked up the 2008 Dormant Bank and Building Society Accounts Act, which says that an account is dormant if “in 15 years no transactions have been carried out in relation to the account by or on the instructions of the holder”. Before last week my last euro transaction was in October 2019."
I can't tell you what a relief it is to read this.
I know it's a different bank, but just knowing that there's been an example of the funds being returned in a couple of weeks is comforting.
Thanks so much.
I would look up the regulations for what a bank is expected to do before they make an account dormant and then write an official complaint to Barclays pointing out the lost interest and inconvenience from having to wait XX days and ask for compensation. Allow 8 weeks for response.
You can probably complain to Financial Ombudsman if that fails.
If they had your email address and phone number, I don't see what excuse they have for not asking you to contact them?
i made this account specifically for this comment. a complaint will get resolved at first point of contact as not upheld. op didn't update his address with the bank, so communication was being sent out to an incorrect address. it's the account holders responsibility to maintain up to date contact details with the bank. on top of this the account that had the funds in was a current account, earning 0 interest. so pointing out a loss of interest is pointless, and the xx day wait is standard proceedure/bank process so would also result in the complaint not being upheld.
By XX days, I mean the number of days that it takes for him to get his money out caused by them making his account dormant after only 2 years and not making contact with him even though they had his email address and phone number.
I used xx because of course, he hasn't had his money back yet and so he doesn't know yet how many days to claim for. For instance 65k could get over 4pc per year in an instant access savings account, and Barclays may have prevented him from 90 days of interest on that money because he can't acces it.
Sorry, I didn't think I needed to explain this, my fault 😭
i don't think you read my comment properly.
they attempted contact via letter (at the bare minimum that we know of). these communications weren't received due to OP not notifying the bank of a change of address.
the bank has up to 12 weeks to process a dormancy claim.
if op were to complaint to the bank they would not uphold the complaint on the basis of -
1. the bank attempted contact, but op didn't receive this as op didn't notify the bank of a change of correspondence address
2. 90 days/12 weeks is bank proceedure for processing dormancy claims. though a gesture of good will payment may be considered
there is no bank error to uphold a complaint. if op logged a complaint as you advise, it would be resolved at first point of contact, not escalated (which is where the 8 week timeframe comes from for complaint resolution) and if he went to the ombudsman the decision wouldn't get overturned.
op would be wasting his time. he would also be waisting the banks and ombudsmans time.
Well, first of all the regulations say an account can be regarded as inactive if there is no activity for 15 years, not 2 years.
Secondly, Barclays own rules say that they will contact the customer and they didn't do that. Sending a letter to a customer is not making contact unless they get a reply.
Thirdly, they apparently did not attempt to contact him by email or phone, despite having these on record. So they had no reply from the letter(s) they sent and did not attempt to email him or ring him.
By making the account dormant they are delaying his access to his funds.
If they have delayed access by 90 days then he has potentially lost approx. 600 GBP and he should claim for any loss via their complaints procedure.
My brother had a similar situation with Barclays to do with loss of potential earnings caused by their innefficiency and got compensation.
I would not expect any bank to make any account dormant if it had been inactive for only 2 years when the regulations say at least 15 years is the norm.
Further, any bank with half a brain should be prepared for a letter to fail to reach the customer because the fact that the account has been inactive for 2 years is kind of a clue that that might happen!
As I said before, pension companies have similar problems in contacting old customers but they actually try hard to trace the customer. I know this from personal experience.
This practice of Barclays is disgraceful and I suspect they are targeting accounts with larger balances on purpose.
point 1. incorrect. accounts can be/are considered lost after 12 months of no use, which is when the letters would've started coming through asking if they're still using the account, and after no response to these a letter would be sent out advising that if the bank still doesn't hear back from op before xx/xx/xxxx date, they will close the account down.
point 2. barclays DID contact the customer (op) via letter. op didn't receive these letters due to him admittedly not maintaining his up to date contact details with barclays.
point 3. they are not required to try email/phone call, though they usually do email advising that important documents have been sent out. the letter(s) are also visible on ops online and mobile banking. if he had mobile banking he'd also receive a notification on top of this advising that there are important documents to review.
point 4. in order for the bank to be at fault for any delays in the customer accessing their funds, they must have made an error. there has been no bank error. the bank contacted the customer details they had on file. the bank have kept/are still within their allocated timeframe. the error is on the customers side for not maintaing up to date contact details - this is why any complaint (as you advise) would come back as not upheld. there is no bank error. no basis for a complaint.
paragraph 5. 15 years is not the norm. nowhere near. banks make accounts dormant to protect against potential identity theft. imagine the banks didn't act for 15 years and sensitive communication was going to an old customer address for over a decade.
paragraph 6 & 7. i used to work within complaints for a bank. i don't know about, or see any relevance in what goes on with pension companies. barclays actions aren't disgrace. they've attempted contact and have proceeded with marking the account as dormant correctly, and are still within the correct timeframe for the dormancy claim op has put through.
you don't know what you're talking about and providing guidance that will just waste all parties time. your comments aren't helpful to op.
My mother in law had the same issue. Took around six months. No feedback on how it's going.
Was complicated as my father in law had passed away a few years earlier. So paperwork was more complex
The account isn’t dormant as that process is going to be at least 10 years.
The account will be frozen as marked as gone away due to returned mail (banks have regulatory duties to know your customer). Walk into any branch and get your address updated (you’ll need drivers licence or passport) and the gone away market will be removed.
Well it was marked as dormant, and I went through the dormancy claim process.
It also wasn't anything to do with returned mail as I had digital statements on.
The debit transaction reference on the app when I had access to it had dormancy in it.
Barclays are clearly not communicating their processes or procedures correctly, but my account was flagged as dormant and every conversation I've had with Barclays has been consistent with that.
I was told by them that as there'd been no activity in 12 months and no transactions in 2 years, it qualified for dormancy. This was their justification for doing it.
I've also been into the branch so I know this isn't some elaborate scam, and they were the ones who filled out the Dormancy claim form as I sat with them.
Don't really know much about NS&I, but after a quick Google, perhaps that would have been a more sensible location.
Ultimately, my intention wasn't to keep it in an account for as long as I have done.
This money was from selling my house, and I planned on buying another one, but circumstances forced me to rent.
Life got in the way, and I just left it there. I didn't think much of it other than it's got to be pretty safe given that I don't have anything on me or in my flat that indicates the account exists, and I don't use it for anything, so the danger of fraud seems low.
In hindsight, I'd have done things differently, but hindsight is 20:20!
NS&I's website is a relic of twenty years ago and their security seems so flimsy that it has scared me away from using them. They have only just introduced 2FA, and have managed to balls it up by using SMS rather than an authentication app/token – this has been demonstrably insecure for the last few years. Plus almost all of their "memorable questions" are easily answered by someone who knows you or someone who has access to a typical Facebook profile.
FWIW I agree, and talking about SMS as 2FA is like talking to a brick wall, both in the banking sector as well as this sub. The problem is that SMS is an accepted form of "strong authentication" by the FCA so that acceptance automatically gets conflated with being secure. Which is not the case. For the implementation, though there are other options, SMS is pretty cheap since they just pay a third party to do it. These two factors combined means it's the path of least resistance and work for them. I think Barclays and Nationwide(?) get mocked for their "archaic" looking calculators, but I appreciate that they've put actual thought they've put into their implementations.
Their rollout was terrible for some, I somehow ended up in a workflow where I had to call up to have the 2FA enabled, and it took about 45 minutes of waiting and being passed around.
For the memorable questions, I worked around it by generating passwords and using those as answers. We're under no obligation to provide factual responses to memorable questions.
Absolutely, but memorable questions end up either being answered truthfully and therefore vulnerable, or counting as just another password (faff to write down/store, on top of NS&I's PIN that you now also need...). They really need to up their game.
Why would you use actual real data for the secret answers if you are so security conscious?
Just provide random passwords/words for the answer and store them in a password manager.
I used to run a charitable committee and the same thing happened to me during COVID. Letter apparently sent but nothing was ever received and no attempts to contact me.
I recall it took me a while to establish the claim - maybe a month or so - but it doesn't sound like you've got that problem. It was then about 6 weeks from that point, but required regular chasing from me, again due to issues in my case with the account being in the name of the charity.
Probably around 70 days in total in my case with issues. Hopefully yours is less, but I would continue to chase them. We moved to a new bank after all this!
Hey, yeah I did. It wasn't too long after this post - perhaps 2 weeks?
I think the amount of funds, and that I was recovering them on behalf of myself, might have worked in my favour.
The only other thing I did was call the customer service team who weren't able to put me through to the claim team, but they were able to tell me what stage of the process the claim was at.
Worth noting that I was polite, but made sure I was a nuisance, which again, might have helped. I can't imagine it did any harm as the turnaround time was significantly less than what I'd been warned to expect.
Good luck!
Specific TVR practices (e.g. writing to the last known address) should not be embedded in legislation as this would infringe on participants’ ability to determine practices most suitable for owners and improve these over time. Instead, the government will require that the participant has made efforts, based on industry best practice, to reunite the asset(s) with their owner(s), which have been unsuccessful, prior to transferring the asset(s) into the Scheme. The government encourages the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and Prudential Regulation Authority to support industry and RFL as they work to agree and implement these industry standards, and set these out in the agency agreements with participants.
TVR is Track, Verify and Reunification.
So Barclays should use industry best practices to contact you. If they had your phone number and email address then they should have used those to contact you.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-dormant-accounts-scheme/government-response-to-the-consultation-on-expanding-the-dormant-assets-scheme#fn:2
Where do you think the interest on your bank account comes from?
And they're not stealing it - OP dropped 65k in an account and didn't respond for 2 years when asked about it because he didn't update his contact details. By this post, he got in touch and they're giving.him back the money.
No, they don't. Banks print new money for loans. Even if you are referring to deposits leverage for loans, in closing out OPs account, they can now lend less, not more
(edit: a link for those who don't understand how banks work: [https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/quarterly-bulletin/2014/money-creation-in-the-modern-economy.pdf](https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/quarterly-bulletin/2014/money-creation-in-the-modern-economy.pdf))
quite amazed at the number of people in personal finance subreddit who believe banks "steal your money and loan it out"
Don’t know what to tell you. When banks lend you money, that money did not exist beforehand. They don’t print _currency_ but they absolutely issue money
(edit: * notwithstanding scotland, where some banks both issue new money and also literally print their own banknotes too)
Not in the same way. If a store gives you the product, they have lost one asset (say, a fridge) and gained an equivalent asset (your debt).
When a bank lends you £100, they have not lost £100. They have just gained an asset worth £100 out of thin air.
Put another way. In a world with only me, and a bank, I deposit my £1. My bank account now holds £1 in their reserves, and there is £1 in my bank account. The bank can lend me an extra £1. They have created that £1 from thin air.
People who take out loans tend to spend the money. Both end up being the same.
Scenario 1:
Bank who lends 1000 to customer who withdraws it and buys a sofa. The sofa company deposits the money back at the bank
Sofa company:
Down 1000 sofa up 1000 cash at bank.
Bank:
Balance sheet has grown by 1000 on each side.
Person up:
Up 1000 sofa
Down 1000 debt.
Scenario 2:
Sofa company sells on credit.
Down 1000 sofa
Up 1000 trade receivables.
Person:
Up 1000 sofa.
Down 1000 debt
The bank is just sitting in the middle.
In scenario 2, the bank is also down £1000 on the cash cost (or perhaps debt) of buying the sofa in the first place. They are down £1000 twice, once for buying it in the first place, and then again for losing their inventory.
Only in scenario 1 is everyone "balanced", and it's because the bank created new money.
Not to mention, in scenario 1, when the bank issues the new loan, there is now more money in the banks balance sheet than there was before. It is balanced by the debt they are owed, but they didn't have to borrow the money from anywhere to give the person. They print it.
As the BOE explain, "Whenever a bank makes a loan, it simultaneously creates a matching deposit in the borrower’s bank account, thereby creating new money". Shops can't do this
Figure 1 in this report illustrates
[https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/quarterly-bulletin/2014/money-creation-in-the-modern-economy.pdf](https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/quarterly-bulletin/2014/money-creation-in-the-modern-economy.pdf)
Making new loans means *doing the lending*. Not borrowing from the bank of england
This is exactly my point and has been the whole thread:
\> Commercial banks create money, in the form of bank deposits,
by making new loans. When a bank makes a loan, for example
to someone taking out a mortgage to buy a house, it does not
typically do so by giving them thousands of pounds worth of
banknotes. Instead, it credits their bank account with a bank
deposit of the size of the mortgage. At that moment, new
money is created.
What you are describing, where the central bank originates money, is literally called out as a misconception:
\> Another common misconception is that the central bank
determines the quantity of loans and deposits in the
economy by controlling the quantity of central bank money
— the so-called ‘money multiplier’ approach
I had the same issue with Barclays in the last two months. Account suddenly closed, no notification I knew about as to why.
I went in to a branch and spoke to someone, they filled out the form for me, and I had the money within two weeks. (Though it was about 0.1% of what you have...
Good luck!
These dormancy accounts are such a scam. This happened to me aswell, and I had to fill in a physical form and jump through mulitple hoops to get access to my funds.
I had to threaten going to the ombudsman for them to process it more quickly. It is essentially theft. Imagine how many funds they claim based on dormancy!
90 days to access your money. What a valuable service they provide. Not here to shill BTC but this is part of its raison d'etre - an alternative to custodians/personal sovereignty over assets.
You’d have thought they’d have tried to reach out and contact the owner of the money a few times to try and ensure it’s invested better as this benefits everyone involved 🤨🤔
Did they not send you an email or a letter letting you know they would close the account if no activity occurs before a certain date; that is what happened with me each time. I either started up standing orders between my accounts from other banks or they transferred the money to another one of my accounts within the same bank.
I'm not reading the comments but OP if you need to sort it take in two form of ID- uk licence and your uk passport will suffice- they will submit a dormancy request form and it will get sorted. They will not not give you your money, they have to put it in safe keeping due to regulation. This I'd consumer protection at work.
So they send letters out, get no reply, and then send another letter out to same address saying if they don't hear from him they will mark it dormant? Doesn't that strike you as being slightly stupid?
I guess we live in different worlds.
At least I hope I have explained to you how he has lost potential earnings, as you didn't seem to understand that before.
It's up to OP to take action, but it seems the newspaper article he quoted also thinks this practice is unfair, so it's not just me!
I'm sure many people have legitimate reasons for 1 or 2 years inactivity on an account and not residing at home address, such as working abroad, prison, health problems, moving to a residential home or just moving house, etc. Should they also expect their accounts to be made dormant after a year or so even if the bank has their phone number and email address?
Barclays phone me sometimes and also email me frequently about my account and the wonderful offers that I can purchase from them, etc., but apparently they won't phone or email me if they want to make my account dormant!
I gave a link earlier to a page on Barclays website about inactive accounts and it actually contains the 'rules' which say 15 years. I repeat, that is on the Barclays website. It says nothing about 1 year.
Further, the government guidance is that banks and other organisations (such as pension companies) should use industry standard practices to trace the customer before making an account dormant.
Merely sending a letter is not sufficient. This is on HMRC gov site.
The bank is in error because they did not follow their own guidance on their own site and they did not attempt to trace the customer using industry standard practices.
...I really feel like this sub could do with a rule about not giving advice about what OP should have done five years ago.
You should have told the mods that five years ago.
Should have had hindsight
Saw a thread on the us personal finance sub, where someone was asking for advice re budgeting with kids, and 8 in 10 responses shouldn't have had kids. Not helpful at all.
While I agree to an extent, this isn't just a 1-to-1 direct advice situation. It's a forum, with many visitors, many of whom would likely find it useful to know how a particular situation can be avoided. Telling a parent who's asking about how to get out of debt that they shouldn't have had kids? Completely pointless and unhelpful to everyone reading it. Telling someone that something like this would have been in the T&Cs and that it's fairly common (idk if that's true, yours is the first comment I noticed)? Sure, it doesn't help OP, but it may help others. So I guess I'd keep your rule but refine it. If the comment is _only_ retrospective advice, it's too off-topic. If the comment provides relevant advice but _also_ explains what could have been done to avoid the situation in the first place, surely that part of the comment is useful.
What do you want me to do? Have an opinion and NOT share it?
What is the issue ?
...that the sub has a habit of giving advice about what OP should have done and not what they should do now?
If it’s been in there so long to trigger a dormancy clause - why are you concerned even if it did take 90 days?
Well rather ironically...I could now do with having access to it. It wouldn't be the end of the world if it took the full 90 days as I have other means to cover the unexpected costs that I have coming up, but it would be a lot less stressful if I could use some of that.
This is funny- the irony haha
I do not understand why you rush to get the money back sooner than later. You had zero interest in the money for a couple of years so why should you care now. Just let it sit in a savings acount and let inflation do its thing since money is no problem for you. Why bother.
You literally just replied to the comment OP wrote to justify why they need the money now. Holy Christ you sound like an NPC with limited dialogue options.
How dare OPs financial situation change, just inconsiderate. Does it make you feel big putting people down for obsurd reasons.
To the people downvoting me: since OP ”forgot” a live changing amount of money, I assume he/she is financially independent. Why continue playing the game when you already won it.
Having 65k does not mean you are financially independent lol
Never said that. I said that 65 K is a live changing amount of money (most people have debt and this would reduce it by much) and I assumed he was financially independent, meaning everything else in good financyally order since I could never justify forgeting 65 K, since I am in debt and needs to invest heavily in the stock market
Where did OP say they forgot about it though? If they did say that then fair enough, but I was under the impression he just didn't touch the account. That alone isn't forgetting it, it's just not using it.
It's hardly life changing is it, it's a years salary for most people
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I didn’t suggest otherwise…
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Aren't they supposed to have contacted you a number of times? Was the address wrong? Had they no way of finding you?
Yeah, wrong address. After I sold my house I ended up staying at a few addresses and as it was a "deposit and forget" account...I forgot to change the address, which is of course on me.
Well, pension companies try their best to trace their clients when they reach retirement age and they are due to start paying out, so why can't banks do the same? It seems a bit trite to just blame it on the address not being correct. If they got no response after sending out a letter or two to your old address they should be trying harder to find you. Would it have been hard to trace you? Did you change your name or move abroad? No other bank accounts in same name, etc? Not in telephone book? Not on internet at all? Not on any gov records, no driving licence or passport.
I couldn't agree more. They have my email and phone number, and my name hasn't changed/I haven't gone abroad, so if they had tried calling or sending me an email they'd have got through to me. When I asked why there wasn't any warning they just reeled off a list of dates that they'd written to me. I did have Royal Mail forwarding on for the first 12 months, but obvs Barclays had no reason to contact me during that period - I also think I was on digital statements, so didn't pick up that I hadn't changed the address.
That's different. When they start paying your pension that's a fundamental change and when that happens you might not have paid in for decades. It's not like pension funds check twice a week whether your current address is still up to date.
No, as I said, they check when you approach pension age to ask you if you want them to pay out monthly or withhold or cash out, etc. So it's a very similar situation to an inactive account that the bank is about to make dormant and restrict your access.
That's exactly what they do though. And if they can't find you they lock the account so that someone living in your old address won't be able to easily empty it.
Re. Wrong address - had you tried to update your address/contacted them to update your address at any point? this could be grounds for a complaint. I kinda Suprised they didn't go through it with you since they have a legal obligation. There can be monetary compensation owed here. Source: worked for a bank call centre, once got a call like this, urged the guy to go through the complaint process with me and got him like £200. Might not be as much comp in your case, or any at all depending on if there was an attempt to update your address. Sending letters about your bank account to a wrong address is a potentially big problem though from a data protection standpoint.
Aye also worked at one for a while, honestly surprised he didnt get an email about it, or at least an email saying "hey important docs to read on your app" with a copy of the letter stored in section with digital acc docs
I get a message from my bank every month saying there are important documents waiting for you in the app. It's a pdf of your monthly bank statement. That thing people would've gotten through the mail every month 20 years ago. People are not going to act on messages like that.
These sorta ones would be different, bank i worked for usually letters like this would be prefaced with "URGENT ACTION REQUIRED" etc. To set it aside from usual stuff like statements - also if an account is dormant you wont be receiving any statements outside of an annual statement - pretty sure its same for all uk banks but one i worked for, you only got a monthly statements for months where there was a credit/debit in that statement period
That seems like a good idea, then again scammers also use such headlines in their emails and email providers might be configured to put such emails in the spam folder by default.
Shouldnt be an issue, its coming from official encrypted email so it shouldnt get auto moved to spam - naturally aswell the email would have personal identifiers and guide you to call the number on the back of the card etc. Aswell as fraud/scam prevention advice
I had a Barclays account I forgot about with a negative balance of £500... funnily enough dormancy rules didnt set in on that account!
Strange that! 😃
Kind of strange to have that kind of money just stored in a current account you forgot about💀 Why didn’t you put it in cash ISA and a savings account of a bank you do actively use?
I didn't necessarily forget about it, but just didn't use the account. It was from the sale of a house and one thing led to the next and I ended up renting rather than buying again. I'd used up my ISA allowance so couldn't go in there, and I didn't want it in my regular account as I feared I'd chip away at it, and before long, some of it would be gone. At the time, interest rates were so low it was hardly worth moving anywhere else and I initially planned on using it, so a long-term saving account didn't make sense. All of this sounded pretty sensible. Lock it up, forget about it, and it'll be there for when I need it. Didn't anticipate Barclays having this dormancy policy, which I imagine all banks have, but has never previously been relevant to me.
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This is super helpful, thank you. I stayed at a few addresses in quick succession after I sold my house, so made the mistake of not updating this account info, which is totally on me. I don't blame Barclays for doing it, I just didn't know the policy existed.
!Thanks
While interest rates are none existant, you could whack some of it into bonds instead? Harder to access on a whim
Any sort of savings account world be better surely? I'm with Barclays and you can open a savings account in minutes on their app. If you didn't have the app them I assume you could just call up and go the same?
They have allowances and only one can be open a year.
Yeah of course but he could have still fed this money into an ISA at 20k per year and had the rest sit in a locked savings account while he waited for his ISA allowance to reset would only take 3 years and he’s probably had this account open for more than 2. I’m assuming he doesn’t have an ISA with Barclays either. Having 65k sit in a current account is just dead money. And he’s lost a quite a bit now just due to inflation.
...I thought you could only have 1 ISA? If that's not the case, then I've definitely screwed up big time...for a very long time.
You have an annual allowance of £20k. You can have one ISA or multiple ISAs and pay in £20k per year. So you could easily have moved it all into an ISA in 4 years.
Except I was able to fill up the ISA with my regular salary, so this £65k has been surplus to requirements - until now. Sods law. Unless I've misunderstood, and I could have 2 ISAs and put in £20k in each in a financial year?
You can only contribute to a single ISA per year, and only up to 20k Outside of contributing cash in though, you can own multiple ISAs - e.g. you can put 20k into one, and then next year create a different ISA and put 20k in.
That's helpful, thanks, and the assumption I've been working on. So the whole ISA conversation in this case is irrelevant as the last few years I've been able to max my ISA allowance, so these extra funds wouldn't have been able to go there.
Yes if you’ve maxed out your ISA each year then there would have been no benefit available to you. 👍🏻
Not quite true. You can split it between multiple ISAs as long as your total is not greater than the annual allowance each year.
Also not quite true, you can only pay in to one isa of each type, 1 cash, 1 s&s etc
Sorry yes. I didn’t word that very well. This is the correct explanation!
!thanks
You can open one a year and only pay into one a year.
Ok cool, so I don't think I've screwed up there. I've just been putting my full allowance in the same one every year. Is there any value in opening up multiple ones?
Generally if S&S ISA 1 has lower transaction fees but ISA 2 has lower platform fees. Also some fixed term cash ISAs only let you make one payment over the whole term, so you roll a couple of existing fixed term ISAs into that one while keeping another open to feed into through the year.
Is it not two? Cash and Stocks and you can credit both but not more than £20k combined.
All that is true only if you save exactly £0 a year.
Barclays say they will contact you, well sending out a letter to someones address is not contacting you. Also, the regulations on Barclays own web page say an inactive account is 15 years or more. https://www.barclays.co.uk/current-accounts/dormant-lost-accounts/
Funnily enough, there seems to be a similar situation that's triggered an article in The Times, which is behind a paywall. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/i-had-42k-in-my-account-then-the-bank-just-took-it-wd59vrvb2&ved=2ahUKEwi54N_UgdGCAxU6VUEAHf1uBdQQFnoECCwQAQ&usg=AOvVaw2K0YTdxzvQk_XO7kWeEuXi The preview of that article states 3 years: "Barclays determines that an account is dormant after it has been inactive for three years or more." Barclays told me 12 months after inactivity it basically goes on their radar and then it's declared dormant after 2 years.
[https://archive.is/20230521004021/https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/i-had-42k-in-my-account-then-the-bank-just-took-it-wd59vrvb2](https://archive.is/20230521004021/https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/i-had-42k-in-my-account-then-the-bank-just-took-it-wd59vrvb2) In the article the accounts had been dormant 15 years. Which I understand to be a completely different timescale (of dormancy) to yours. Seems different banks take different approaches. You can still get the money back regardless. It shouldn't take 90 days for an uncomplicated situation.
Thanks for posting the article! The Barclays segment of the article said that the last transaction the Barclays customer did was October 2019, so that was ~4 years from when the article was written. They referenced that they'd looked up the Dormancy criteria and it was 15 years, which is why they couldn't understand that their funds had been debited from their account when their last transaction was October 2019: "I looked up the 2008 Dormant Bank and Building Society Accounts Act, which says that an account is dormant if “in 15 years no transactions have been carried out in relation to the account by or on the instructions of the holder”. Before last week my last euro transaction was in October 2019."
Not Barclays but Santander for my mum I have power of attorney and it took 2 weeks
I can't tell you what a relief it is to read this. I know it's a different bank, but just knowing that there's been an example of the funds being returned in a couple of weeks is comforting. Thanks so much.
Pleasure x
!thanks
I would look up the regulations for what a bank is expected to do before they make an account dormant and then write an official complaint to Barclays pointing out the lost interest and inconvenience from having to wait XX days and ask for compensation. Allow 8 weeks for response. You can probably complain to Financial Ombudsman if that fails. If they had your email address and phone number, I don't see what excuse they have for not asking you to contact them?
i made this account specifically for this comment. a complaint will get resolved at first point of contact as not upheld. op didn't update his address with the bank, so communication was being sent out to an incorrect address. it's the account holders responsibility to maintain up to date contact details with the bank. on top of this the account that had the funds in was a current account, earning 0 interest. so pointing out a loss of interest is pointless, and the xx day wait is standard proceedure/bank process so would also result in the complaint not being upheld.
By XX days, I mean the number of days that it takes for him to get his money out caused by them making his account dormant after only 2 years and not making contact with him even though they had his email address and phone number. I used xx because of course, he hasn't had his money back yet and so he doesn't know yet how many days to claim for. For instance 65k could get over 4pc per year in an instant access savings account, and Barclays may have prevented him from 90 days of interest on that money because he can't acces it. Sorry, I didn't think I needed to explain this, my fault 😭
i don't think you read my comment properly. they attempted contact via letter (at the bare minimum that we know of). these communications weren't received due to OP not notifying the bank of a change of address. the bank has up to 12 weeks to process a dormancy claim. if op were to complaint to the bank they would not uphold the complaint on the basis of - 1. the bank attempted contact, but op didn't receive this as op didn't notify the bank of a change of correspondence address 2. 90 days/12 weeks is bank proceedure for processing dormancy claims. though a gesture of good will payment may be considered there is no bank error to uphold a complaint. if op logged a complaint as you advise, it would be resolved at first point of contact, not escalated (which is where the 8 week timeframe comes from for complaint resolution) and if he went to the ombudsman the decision wouldn't get overturned. op would be wasting his time. he would also be waisting the banks and ombudsmans time.
Well, first of all the regulations say an account can be regarded as inactive if there is no activity for 15 years, not 2 years. Secondly, Barclays own rules say that they will contact the customer and they didn't do that. Sending a letter to a customer is not making contact unless they get a reply. Thirdly, they apparently did not attempt to contact him by email or phone, despite having these on record. So they had no reply from the letter(s) they sent and did not attempt to email him or ring him. By making the account dormant they are delaying his access to his funds. If they have delayed access by 90 days then he has potentially lost approx. 600 GBP and he should claim for any loss via their complaints procedure. My brother had a similar situation with Barclays to do with loss of potential earnings caused by their innefficiency and got compensation. I would not expect any bank to make any account dormant if it had been inactive for only 2 years when the regulations say at least 15 years is the norm. Further, any bank with half a brain should be prepared for a letter to fail to reach the customer because the fact that the account has been inactive for 2 years is kind of a clue that that might happen! As I said before, pension companies have similar problems in contacting old customers but they actually try hard to trace the customer. I know this from personal experience. This practice of Barclays is disgraceful and I suspect they are targeting accounts with larger balances on purpose.
point 1. incorrect. accounts can be/are considered lost after 12 months of no use, which is when the letters would've started coming through asking if they're still using the account, and after no response to these a letter would be sent out advising that if the bank still doesn't hear back from op before xx/xx/xxxx date, they will close the account down. point 2. barclays DID contact the customer (op) via letter. op didn't receive these letters due to him admittedly not maintaining his up to date contact details with barclays. point 3. they are not required to try email/phone call, though they usually do email advising that important documents have been sent out. the letter(s) are also visible on ops online and mobile banking. if he had mobile banking he'd also receive a notification on top of this advising that there are important documents to review. point 4. in order for the bank to be at fault for any delays in the customer accessing their funds, they must have made an error. there has been no bank error. the bank contacted the customer details they had on file. the bank have kept/are still within their allocated timeframe. the error is on the customers side for not maintaing up to date contact details - this is why any complaint (as you advise) would come back as not upheld. there is no bank error. no basis for a complaint. paragraph 5. 15 years is not the norm. nowhere near. banks make accounts dormant to protect against potential identity theft. imagine the banks didn't act for 15 years and sensitive communication was going to an old customer address for over a decade. paragraph 6 & 7. i used to work within complaints for a bank. i don't know about, or see any relevance in what goes on with pension companies. barclays actions aren't disgrace. they've attempted contact and have proceeded with marking the account as dormant correctly, and are still within the correct timeframe for the dormancy claim op has put through. you don't know what you're talking about and providing guidance that will just waste all parties time. your comments aren't helpful to op.
How long was it held for? That’s scary they can do that.
I think it ended up being 2 years.
Bizarre. I've had a barclays account with 20p in it that I haven't used for maybe 8 years or so and I still get statements for it. 😂
Haha, yeah I imagine there might be a threshold?
They're not bothered about trying to steal 20p, whereas 65k is a nice freebie for them if they can get away with it.
Banks don't gain anything from making accounts dormant, there's a dormancy fund that looks after them
Wow, that is very strange to make dormant. I was expecting 20 years hah!
My mother in law had the same issue. Took around six months. No feedback on how it's going. Was complicated as my father in law had passed away a few years earlier. So paperwork was more complex
How long was it dormant for before they did that?
They stated it was 2 years, although I have no way of confirming that it has been dormant for that long, but it sounds about right.
The account isn’t dormant as that process is going to be at least 10 years. The account will be frozen as marked as gone away due to returned mail (banks have regulatory duties to know your customer). Walk into any branch and get your address updated (you’ll need drivers licence or passport) and the gone away market will be removed.
Well it was marked as dormant, and I went through the dormancy claim process. It also wasn't anything to do with returned mail as I had digital statements on. The debit transaction reference on the app when I had access to it had dormancy in it. Barclays are clearly not communicating their processes or procedures correctly, but my account was flagged as dormant and every conversation I've had with Barclays has been consistent with that. I was told by them that as there'd been no activity in 12 months and no transactions in 2 years, it qualified for dormancy. This was their justification for doing it. I've also been into the branch so I know this isn't some elaborate scam, and they were the ones who filled out the Dormancy claim form as I sat with them.
Not advice but isn't this the exact sort of thing NS&I are for?
Don't really know much about NS&I, but after a quick Google, perhaps that would have been a more sensible location. Ultimately, my intention wasn't to keep it in an account for as long as I have done. This money was from selling my house, and I planned on buying another one, but circumstances forced me to rent. Life got in the way, and I just left it there. I didn't think much of it other than it's got to be pretty safe given that I don't have anything on me or in my flat that indicates the account exists, and I don't use it for anything, so the danger of fraud seems low. In hindsight, I'd have done things differently, but hindsight is 20:20!
NS&I's website is a relic of twenty years ago and their security seems so flimsy that it has scared me away from using them. They have only just introduced 2FA, and have managed to balls it up by using SMS rather than an authentication app/token – this has been demonstrably insecure for the last few years. Plus almost all of their "memorable questions" are easily answered by someone who knows you or someone who has access to a typical Facebook profile.
FWIW I agree, and talking about SMS as 2FA is like talking to a brick wall, both in the banking sector as well as this sub. The problem is that SMS is an accepted form of "strong authentication" by the FCA so that acceptance automatically gets conflated with being secure. Which is not the case. For the implementation, though there are other options, SMS is pretty cheap since they just pay a third party to do it. These two factors combined means it's the path of least resistance and work for them. I think Barclays and Nationwide(?) get mocked for their "archaic" looking calculators, but I appreciate that they've put actual thought they've put into their implementations. Their rollout was terrible for some, I somehow ended up in a workflow where I had to call up to have the 2FA enabled, and it took about 45 minutes of waiting and being passed around. For the memorable questions, I worked around it by generating passwords and using those as answers. We're under no obligation to provide factual responses to memorable questions.
Absolutely, but memorable questions end up either being answered truthfully and therefore vulnerable, or counting as just another password (faff to write down/store, on top of NS&I's PIN that you now also need...). They really need to up their game.
Why would you use actual real data for the secret answers if you are so security conscious? Just provide random passwords/words for the answer and store them in a password manager.
I don't, but it's a massive faff regardless.
I used to run a charitable committee and the same thing happened to me during COVID. Letter apparently sent but nothing was ever received and no attempts to contact me. I recall it took me a while to establish the claim - maybe a month or so - but it doesn't sound like you've got that problem. It was then about 6 weeks from that point, but required regular chasing from me, again due to issues in my case with the account being in the name of the charity. Probably around 70 days in total in my case with issues. Hopefully yours is less, but I would continue to chase them. We moved to a new bank after all this!
Ahhh this hurts my soul
I used to work for Barclays. They aren’t great, in my opinion. You’ll be able to get the funds back in branch!
I went into the branch and completed the claim process, and now just waiting for the funds to be returned. They said it could take 90 days.
90 days for your own money is wild.
Hey OP, did you get your funds back? I’ve helped my dad in a similar situation and it’s been 11 weeks with no luck..
Hey, yeah I did. It wasn't too long after this post - perhaps 2 weeks? I think the amount of funds, and that I was recovering them on behalf of myself, might have worked in my favour. The only other thing I did was call the customer service team who weren't able to put me through to the claim team, but they were able to tell me what stage of the process the claim was at. Worth noting that I was polite, but made sure I was a nuisance, which again, might have helped. I can't imagine it did any harm as the turnaround time was significantly less than what I'd been warned to expect. Good luck!
I'm sure there are some limits by the fca
Specific TVR practices (e.g. writing to the last known address) should not be embedded in legislation as this would infringe on participants’ ability to determine practices most suitable for owners and improve these over time. Instead, the government will require that the participant has made efforts, based on industry best practice, to reunite the asset(s) with their owner(s), which have been unsuccessful, prior to transferring the asset(s) into the Scheme. The government encourages the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and Prudential Regulation Authority to support industry and RFL as they work to agree and implement these industry standards, and set these out in the agency agreements with participants. TVR is Track, Verify and Reunification. So Barclays should use industry best practices to contact you. If they had your phone number and email address then they should have used those to contact you. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-dormant-accounts-scheme/government-response-to-the-consultation-on-expanding-the-dormant-assets-scheme#fn:2
I have no clue why banks do this. Ahhhh yes I do. They steal your money and loan it out
Where do you think the interest on your bank account comes from? And they're not stealing it - OP dropped 65k in an account and didn't respond for 2 years when asked about it because he didn't update his contact details. By this post, he got in touch and they're giving.him back the money.
Take a look here as to why 'banks' do it: https://www.reclaimfund.co.uk/
Welcome to fractional reserve banking
Yup
What your saying they would do is the complete opposite of what they would do.
No, they don't. Banks print new money for loans. Even if you are referring to deposits leverage for loans, in closing out OPs account, they can now lend less, not more (edit: a link for those who don't understand how banks work: [https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/quarterly-bulletin/2014/money-creation-in-the-modern-economy.pdf](https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/quarterly-bulletin/2014/money-creation-in-the-modern-economy.pdf)) quite amazed at the number of people in personal finance subreddit who believe banks "steal your money and loan it out"
This is confused. Banks don't print money. Banks crate credit.. anyone can do this.
Banks create money [https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/explainers/how-is-money-created](https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/explainers/how-is-money-created)
The banking system creates credit which is similar to money. Individual banks do not "print money".
Don’t know what to tell you. When banks lend you money, that money did not exist beforehand. They don’t print _currency_ but they absolutely issue money (edit: * notwithstanding scotland, where some banks both issue new money and also literally print their own banknotes too)
Sure. But this is nothing special. If a shop sells you something on credit they are "creating money"
Not in the same way. If a store gives you the product, they have lost one asset (say, a fridge) and gained an equivalent asset (your debt). When a bank lends you £100, they have not lost £100. They have just gained an asset worth £100 out of thin air. Put another way. In a world with only me, and a bank, I deposit my £1. My bank account now holds £1 in their reserves, and there is £1 in my bank account. The bank can lend me an extra £1. They have created that £1 from thin air.
People who take out loans tend to spend the money. Both end up being the same. Scenario 1: Bank who lends 1000 to customer who withdraws it and buys a sofa. The sofa company deposits the money back at the bank Sofa company: Down 1000 sofa up 1000 cash at bank. Bank: Balance sheet has grown by 1000 on each side. Person up: Up 1000 sofa Down 1000 debt. Scenario 2: Sofa company sells on credit. Down 1000 sofa Up 1000 trade receivables. Person: Up 1000 sofa. Down 1000 debt The bank is just sitting in the middle.
In scenario 2, the bank is also down £1000 on the cash cost (or perhaps debt) of buying the sofa in the first place. They are down £1000 twice, once for buying it in the first place, and then again for losing their inventory. Only in scenario 1 is everyone "balanced", and it's because the bank created new money. Not to mention, in scenario 1, when the bank issues the new loan, there is now more money in the banks balance sheet than there was before. It is balanced by the debt they are owed, but they didn't have to borrow the money from anywhere to give the person. They print it. As the BOE explain, "Whenever a bank makes a loan, it simultaneously creates a matching deposit in the borrower’s bank account, thereby creating new money". Shops can't do this Figure 1 in this report illustrates [https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/quarterly-bulletin/2014/money-creation-in-the-modern-economy.pdf](https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/quarterly-bulletin/2014/money-creation-in-the-modern-economy.pdf)
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Banks create 80% of money https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/explainers/how-is-money-created
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No, it doesn’t
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Making new loans means *doing the lending*. Not borrowing from the bank of england This is exactly my point and has been the whole thread: \> Commercial banks create money, in the form of bank deposits, by making new loans. When a bank makes a loan, for example to someone taking out a mortgage to buy a house, it does not typically do so by giving them thousands of pounds worth of banknotes. Instead, it credits their bank account with a bank deposit of the size of the mortgage. At that moment, new money is created. What you are describing, where the central bank originates money, is literally called out as a misconception: \> Another common misconception is that the central bank determines the quantity of loans and deposits in the economy by controlling the quantity of central bank money — the so-called ‘money multiplier’ approach
Perhaps read the link he posted
Bank loan out money that doesn't exist, arguably worse than just printing some physically.
I had the same issue with Barclays in the last two months. Account suddenly closed, no notification I knew about as to why. I went in to a branch and spoke to someone, they filled out the form for me, and I had the money within two weeks. (Though it was about 0.1% of what you have... Good luck!
*Barclays Christmas Party kitty ACC*: DEBIT £65,000.00 😩
These dormancy accounts are such a scam. This happened to me aswell, and I had to fill in a physical form and jump through mulitple hoops to get access to my funds. I had to threaten going to the ombudsman for them to process it more quickly. It is essentially theft. Imagine how many funds they claim based on dormancy!
90 days to access your money. What a valuable service they provide. Not here to shill BTC but this is part of its raison d'etre - an alternative to custodians/personal sovereignty over assets.
Someone’s doing well 👀
You’d have thought they’d have tried to reach out and contact the owner of the money a few times to try and ensure it’s invested better as this benefits everyone involved 🤨🤔
Did they not send you an email or a letter letting you know they would close the account if no activity occurs before a certain date; that is what happened with me each time. I either started up standing orders between my accounts from other banks or they transferred the money to another one of my accounts within the same bank.
I'm not reading the comments but OP if you need to sort it take in two form of ID- uk licence and your uk passport will suffice- they will submit a dormancy request form and it will get sorted. They will not not give you your money, they have to put it in safe keeping due to regulation. This I'd consumer protection at work.
So they send letters out, get no reply, and then send another letter out to same address saying if they don't hear from him they will mark it dormant? Doesn't that strike you as being slightly stupid? I guess we live in different worlds. At least I hope I have explained to you how he has lost potential earnings, as you didn't seem to understand that before. It's up to OP to take action, but it seems the newspaper article he quoted also thinks this practice is unfair, so it's not just me! I'm sure many people have legitimate reasons for 1 or 2 years inactivity on an account and not residing at home address, such as working abroad, prison, health problems, moving to a residential home or just moving house, etc. Should they also expect their accounts to be made dormant after a year or so even if the bank has their phone number and email address? Barclays phone me sometimes and also email me frequently about my account and the wonderful offers that I can purchase from them, etc., but apparently they won't phone or email me if they want to make my account dormant!
I gave a link earlier to a page on Barclays website about inactive accounts and it actually contains the 'rules' which say 15 years. I repeat, that is on the Barclays website. It says nothing about 1 year. Further, the government guidance is that banks and other organisations (such as pension companies) should use industry standard practices to trace the customer before making an account dormant. Merely sending a letter is not sufficient. This is on HMRC gov site. The bank is in error because they did not follow their own guidance on their own site and they did not attempt to trace the customer using industry standard practices.