8:40am Wednesday 25th August 2010
By Jim Greenhalf
There are a few ordinary nightmares that spring readily to mind: being in a lift during a power failure; unexpected redundancy, and not being able to withdraw your own money from a bank.
Last year, it was the terrifying prospect of banks shutting down ATM machines and closing their doors to customers that prevailed upon the-then Labour Government to take emergency action.
But when a branch of Barclays Bank froze the account of 20-year-old Letitia Shazad, of Lapage Street, Bradford, she didn’t have access to Her Majesty’s Treasury to loan her a few quid while the bank sorted itself out.
And, as the T&A outlined yesterday, Barclays eventually admitted that, in Letitia’s case, it had fallen short of its usual high standard of customer service and had apologised.
The bank was suspicious about what they considered an unusually-large sum that had been deposited in Letitia’s account.
Although Letitia explained that the money originated from a compensation payment to her younger sister Sophia, who had been injured in a car accident, and provided ID and answered the bank’s questions, she still had to go through a grilling before she was given £100 while checks were completed.
“They made me feel like I had done something wrong. It’s like they were basically saying I was a criminal,” she said.
Increasingly these days, it seems, people are considered guilty unless they can prove their innocence, perhaps because criminals are increasingly ingenious in their endeavours to cheat and deceive.
Last year, for example, a woman was jailed for two-and-a-half years after being found guilty of a number of charges, including money laundering.
Mei Ming Yu had put £40,000 through her bank account to enable her to rent houses where cannabis factories could be set up.
Earlier this year, Bradford man Mark Kerr was jailed for his part in a £200,000 bank swindle led by Richard Crawford, head of First Direct Bank.
Crawford was jailed for three-and-a-half years after pleading guilty to fraud, money-laundering and fraud by a person in a position of trust. Kerr received two sentences of 20 months and 12 months to run concurrently.
Because falsely processing large sums of money is so widespread, bank staff, faced with the unfamiliar or unexpected, are likely to err on the side of caution.
Nevertheless, there are courses of action open to anyone in the same or a similar position to Letitia. Local councillors or the Citizens Advice Bureau are usually pretty good at dealing with matters like this.
If you don’t know who your local councillor is, ring City Hall on (01274) 432111.
The main CAB office in Bradford is located at Broadacre House, Vicar Lane, at the bottom of Leeds Road. You can drop in between 9.30am and 12.30pm on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. Wednesday is for appointments only. The number to ring is 0845 1202909.
But sometimes local solutions do not appear to work. A spokesman at the watchdog body, the Financial Services Authority, said banks were under obligation to make sure they had sound systems and controls so they can identify anything unusual in an account, but there was still a responsibility to assess whether a problem like Letitia’s is suspicious or not.
The spokesman said: “In the situation described, a frozen bank account, the person concerned should first of all ask to see the manager. They may be asked to put their complaint in writing.
“If that proves unsatisfactory, they can take their complaint to the Financial Services Ombudsman.”
This is easier than it may seem. The FSO is there to help with problems regarding a range of financial matters, from insurance and pensions to banking.
The consumer helpline number is 0300 1239123; e-mail complaint.info@financial-ombudsman.org.uk. They say they can usually deal with phone queries there and then.
However, if you feel that your banking problem has been log-jammed by the branch you are dealing with, you can ask the FSO to deal with it, but this will mean filling in a complaint form, signing it and posting it with any paperwork relevant to your case – correspondence, for instance.
Always try to send copies; keep the originals safely to hand in a file or envelope.
© Copyright 2001-2012 Newsquest Media Group
http://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/trade_directory/