Our transferred account has vanished

W. L. writes: My wife and I had a savings account with Standard Life Bank that was transferred to an account at Barclays in 2012 when Standard Life merged the business with Barclays. We retired last year and thought we should tidy up our finances. But when we contacted Barclays, we were advised the account had been archived.

We visited a branch with identification and later filled in a ‘lost account’ form, but nothing has been traced.

I OFTEN receive letters like yours, but usually they are from readers who have found an old bank book from, say, the 1970s, and wonder why the bank has no record of them or their money. The explanation is always that passbooks were replaced by paper statements, so the balance shown in the passbook does not reflect later transactions, including withdrawals and account closures.

Your letter stood out because you knew you had just over £80 in your account as recently as 2012, and you could give me the sort code and account number. Armed with these, I asked officials at Barclays’ head office to see what they could find.

They found the answer within a day. In April 2013, you transferred the entire balance to your Bank of Scotland account. I was able to give you the account number and you confirmed that yes, your savings were there. Mystery solved.