TSB called in the police – when all I wanted was to withdraw my money

P.T. writes: I went into the TSB branch in Broad Street, Reading, to draw some cash. I was kept sitting in the assistant manager’s office for about an hour after already producing my debit card and my passport. Then four police officers turned up and circled me and my wife. They started questioning why I wanted my money. I did not answer. I simply walked out, telling TSB I was going to transfer my account to a bank across the road. I am 86, served in the RAF, and am an atomic bomb veteran. I asked myself why I risked my own life to give these idiots a secure one.

YOUR experience is a classic example of what can go badly wrong when a bank reckons it is acting for the best but fails to be sufficiently diplomatic and tactful.

It cannot be normal to call the police every time an 86-yearold customer wants to withdraw their own money, so I asked TSB what made this occasion suspicious. The bank told me you had already made one large withdrawal about a month earlier. This time you asked for an even larger sum, £8,000 in cash. You made a joke about keeping it ‘under the bed’, bank staff say.

All the big banks have asked their staff to watch out for large cash withdrawals by elderly customers who might be victims of ‘financial grooming’ by relatives, carers, or the sort of gangs that knock on your door and tell you about a loose slate on your roof but then demand thousands of pounds for fixing it. When staff suspect this, they notify the police. It is unfortunate that on the day you were at the TSB branch, four officers turned up rather than the typical pair. This made it look like official overkill. In fact, two of the officers were trainees, learning on the job.

TSB has told me it is really sorry you were unhappy at what took place.

A spokesman said: ‘Protecting our customers from fraud is our number one priority.’ Branch staff followed correct procedures, he added.

I do understand why you were upset and angered. But having seen the other side of the coin where senior citizens are cheated, I have to say that I also appreciate why the bank staff did what they did.