Posted on 04/25/2018 12:09:23 PM PDT by ChicagoConservative27
A British family of five has been forced into poverty after their bank froze all their accounts when an error left them $2.1 million overdrawn.
The Livermore family have been forced to go to food banks and live off handouts from friends and relatives for nearly a month after a blunder by Barclays left them $700,000 overdrawn on each of their three accounts.
Paul and his wife, Kayleigh, both 31, have struggled to provide for their three children, ages 11, 8 and 7, for almost a month after the mistake on Easter Monday, which is a national holiday in the UK.
The three Barclays accounts were all in credit before the mistake saw them listed as overdrawn by almost $700,000 each — making it possibly the largest overdraft in the world.
Each account had a negative balance of around $700,000, but Paul insists he never had an overdraft but had agreed to an emergency $14 buffer with the bank.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
They should sue.......
Gee, I thought all that money was free.
I’d be at the local branch every day with my kids asking why it’s taking so long to fix their error.
By this time, I’d be begging for money at the bank from other customers.
The bank should have to pay them a lot.
What a mess. Meanwhile, the bank, Barclay acts as though this family does not even exist except as a possible account error that the bank is not ready to admit to.
The family is doing the right thing going full public with their predicament. Sometimes the court of public opinion can work in your favor when nothing else gets a reaction.
Many families are only one paycheck away from total financial collapse.
You mean you have/had 2.1 mil in the bank, had a problem.... and couldn’t get it resolved in 12 hours.
When you put money in a bank, remember, the money is no longer yours, it is theirs. You are simply and unsecured creditor. Banks also are highly political entities, who are busy keeping up with government regulations concerning the monitoring of your behavior
Your actual needs come further down on the list of their principal concerns.
An overdraft is a bank loan to cover a negative balance on one’s account... it has to be paid back...
It’s taken the bank a month and they still don’t have it fixed. They should have to pay damages to the family for putting them through this. Where the hell is somebody in management to demand this be fixed immediately?
It’s been a month.
They should have gone public long ago, and they should have occupied the local branch long ago.
Wow. This is amazing. Crazy!
Easter Monday is a national holiday there? Why don’t us Yanks have off Easter Monday?
My bank did a double withdrawal of $2000. (years ago). It was settled ON THE PHONE in 15 minutes. You connect directly to the manager and/or the President.
Identity theft?
After a day or two was the time to seek legal counsel. The threat of a lawsuit usually gets complaints expedited.
This happened to a family member on a much lower scale (a couple grand). There was no record of a deposit in their computer, but the family member had a deposit receipt made by a teller. The bank wanted to take custody of that slip of paper, to which the response started with Hell and ended with No.
They graciously issued a “conditional deposit” to the account and eventually found their error.
I still get paper statements. It is not complete security, but it is a written record at a point in time.
I know of an Easter Monday as a holiday in the Philippines, being a Christian country. I was there years ago for business but my stay extended past the weekend. Talk about hard core, the govt shuts down the Tv stations so you could “reflect” on your life, I kid you not.
We have Good Friday off...
I agree. That's usually the last resort for me but the bank made a huge error, sucked up all his funds and left him out to dry. Damn right I'd sue!
You obviously failed to read the article.
In 1978, I’d been working overseas for almost two years and banking most of my paycheck for almost five years. Finally got back to San Francisco, went into the Crocker Bank branch and found out my bank account didn’t exist. All my life savings - gone - POOF! The bank teller was uncooperative. Got the branch manager and he literally said “You probably bounced a check.” He was totally useless and hostile.
I went to the library, got the names of all the state banking commissioners and the top bank executives and wrote them all a letter. I went into the bank a few days later and the manager was profusely apologetic, addressed me as “Mr.” and “Sir” and worked with the teller to fix the problem on the spot. They couldn’t even calculate the interest I was owed, so I ran the calls and showed them how wrong they were. They used my calcs and gave me the back interest.
Morals of the story. 1. Banks are always fouled up. 2. Go straight to the top and get the government regulators involved.
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