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 ...
Even identity theft doesn’t make sense.
If a small family has a few thousand in the bank, the bank isn’t going to cover a huge million dollar overdraft.
Such an attempted overdraft would be rejected.
Overdraft protection is a loan.
The bank isn’t going to loan you a million pounds when you only have a couple thousand in your account, and have never had more than that.
I’d think this would be super-easy to fix. Open a new account somewhere else, and change your direct deposits and debits to that account while Barclays futz around and figure out their error.
No. He had his paycheck and his savings in the bank and the bank made an error showing the overdraft which gobbled up every penny he had in the bank. Leaving him nothing.
I used to use one B of A credit card for everything and then just pay it off every month. So one month I accidentally didn’t hit the decimal when paying online. So I paid 260,000 instead of 2,600. Well, they can only accept payments up to 99,999 so it went something like this:
1. They split the payment into two payments of 99,999 and one payment of 60,002.
2. Since each payment bounced, they charged a $50 fee for each, for a total of $150.
3. My checking account had three NSF charges of $25 each for a total of $75.
4. When they pulled the 2,600 out of the account (all that had actually been paid), they considered it a cash advance, with the doubled interest rate.
Total cost, $225 plus really high interest.
My wife called and got a very rude lady that said she would reverse ONE of the $50 charges because it was our fault, but that’s it. She wouldn’t budge. I told my wife (she was on two phones, one to me and the other to the representative at the time) to tell the lady that was fine and we would cease to use that card, but not to cancel it.
Having worked in IT with call centers I knew how it would play out and that she would make a note of what my wife said. So the next day I call and get a different person. He was very nice and reversed everything and took the “cash advance” status off the payment. He saw the note and realized they would lose a LOT of fees on all the purchases we make.
My daughter is a VP at a bank...she said "Just do it" and I can assure you it will be resolved almost immediately.
They could but they won't. For the same reason a dog licks his b@ll$.
Their mistake, you’re screwed. Your mistake, you’re screwed. Gonna be fun when there is no more cash, and all money is electronic. Computer systems are NEVER designed with the ability to correct error. When there’s a “glitch,” no one knows what the (****) to do, and you’re screwed. You can’t prove you didn’t do something.
There is no such thing as a glitch. It’s human error blamed on the dumb computer.
The law should demand that banks give such cases the highest priority to resolve expeditiously, and each such case should be reviewed afterward by banking regulators, to determine if in fact the bank did all it could to resolve the matter quickly.
Just the way the progressives want it.
As long as they didn’t spend it, it should be easy to resolve.
When I was very young, and had purchased my first new car, with a bank loan at the local savings & loan... I paid it off early. I went to the bank, said I wanted my car title (this was back in the days, when the bank actually kept the loan and the title, etc.). They said they couldn’t find it. I said I would be coming back the next day to get my title. I was calm and businesslike at that point.
I came back the next day, and they gave me some runaround about it, apparently not too interested in my satisfaction, even though I also had savings and checking accounts there. I was sitting at the desk of the loan officer, and said very sternly that I was not leaving without the title, and I was willing to make a scene there in the lobby/desks area, if it didn’t seem like they were going to help me.
Some fluttering and whispering, a vice president got involved, and within about 15 minutes, I had my title.
Sad thing is that, in this day and age, I might have been arrested for standing my ground on that issue.
All my expenses go onto a Discover Card and the balance is paid in full every month by means of Discover accessing my account electronically for the money. There is no need for me to type anything, with the chance of screwing something up. It’s all done for me. I guess the danger here is Discover making unauthorized withdrawals from BofA, but I’ve been doing this for years with never a glitch.
When my kids attended a private religious school, they had Easter Monday off. My boss didn’t believe I needed the day off due to childcare needs - Good Friday he believed, Monday he thought was me trying to get a four day weekend out of it.
Someone in the Barclay system likely has been shifting money into, then out of accounts. Perhaps a money laundering effort. Their manipulations resulted in an internal transaction error; and, likely they were caught-out by the overdrawn account as evidence of the scheme.
The account holders should raise hell loudly to gain public notice of the bank’s neglect in resolving the issue.
It seems to me that when I was a school kid here in Maryland, we always were off on Easter Monday.
We are not Catholic. Grandson’s mother is. So the boy is off to Catholic school.
We thought we knew what to expect. Boy, were we naïve.
Off for Easter Monday?
Years ago I wrote check to the bank holding my mortgage. They posted the credit to the wrong account and in the wrong amount.
An intermediate bank then processed that check for the wrong amount and passed it on to my bank, which also posted the transaction with the wrong amount.
When I first brought it to the attention of my bank, the clerk really didn't seem much interested and wanted me to take it up with the first bank.
I said to her, "Then all I have to do is close my acount today and I'll be $500 richer? That sounds like a good deal." At that point the clerk and her supervisor took more interest.
The solution was relatively complicated because all three banks had to agree to make properly consistent adjustments to undo the error.
After the matter was cleared up I changed banks.
Barclay did the same to me - on a much lower scale - a few months ago.
I make my payment via check/mail as I like PAPER records. I always make a double or more payment over ‘min due’ - and make the same amount every month...$180. Month after month. ONE month, I made it via phone - and boom - ‘account overdrawn” (in my own bank. -
they took - or had pending - $2,180
I called Barclay. Nope. they would do NOTHING. I called my bank and explained story - told them not to pay it out...and also to watch for them reentering it when they saw the ‘stop pay.’ which Barclay said they would do...
I then called Barclay back and told under no circumstances to reenter it. They DID... My bank stopped that one too and took off ‘overdrawn’ fees.
I called Barclay again - and they couldn’t anything until they had listened to the phone transaction to ascertain if I had said $2,180. I asked ‘em: Look at my payment history. How much do I pay, month after month?”
“Ummm $180.00.”
“So, why would you think I’d make a mistake and pay $2,000 extra - that were I to pay extra - would likely be $2,180 - or $2,000?”
“We have to research.”
This card is an LL Bean card thru’ Barclay.
Two weeks and no response. 3 weeks later - a letter stating due to my overdrawn pay’s they were reducing my credit line from $10,000 (WhichI’d had for years) to $3,000, the amount owed on card. (I always keep card balances to below 1/3 the line.) I called, furious because that affects my heretofore excellent credit. I want confirmation that they had listened to the tape and heard ME make the mistake. They refused to answer. I.E., they found they were in error but would not correct it.
I sent for, received and sent out a complaint to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Had it not been for my own bank refusing to pay Barclay - all my monthly payments would have bounced, affecting my credit even more and cost my=e fees - and I would’ve had no food, gas, and other money - and be $2,000 in the hole as I’m sure Barclay would never have refunded it!
Altho my ‘amounts’ were far less than this poor couple, had it not been for MY bank seeing where the mistake was, I would have been just as hungry. I will never have any connection to Barclay again - I’ve paid them off sent their card in burnt pieces.
This doesn’t pass the smell test. The people had 2.1 million disappear. Ok, that’s a banking error but one call to the manager from a millionaire depositor should have, as you said, cleared it up within hours. Someone with a few hundred, yeah, they would be ignored.
How the heck is playing less PlayStation going to help the financial situation?
One would think they had other cash stashed away under the mattress or some other means to make ends meet.
They had no friends or family to help out? Really? They had to rely on the kindness of strangers like the homeless shelter and going on the dole and putting the kids on free school lunches? NO WAY. I’m not buying this for a minute.
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