MoS victory after Barclays paid out dementia woman’s £7,000
BARCLAYS Bank has apologised for failing to protect a vulnerable 89-year-old customer from rogue builders who drove her to one of its branches and bullied her into making a £7,000 cash withdrawal for work not done.
Late last week, the bank agreed to refund the money after the intervention of The Mail on Sunday and accepted it had failed to meet the ‘high standards that our customers can expect from us’.
It also apologised for the distress caused.
The customer, Marguerite Hamnell, suffers from Alzheimer’s disease and has home care assistance, but bank staff allowed her to take out the cash – even though they were suspicious and followed her out of the branch, making a note of the registration number of the builder’s van.
They also did not alert her stepdaughter Jane Gadsby until after the money was withdrawn, even though she is named as attorney on the bank account because of Marguerite’s acute memory issues.
It was only when Marguerite returned again to the branch to withdraw yet more cash from an account now severely depleted – driven there once more by the builders – that the bank called the police.
By the time they arrived the builders had fled – the number plate turning out to have been stolen.
The refund brings to an end a two-and-a-half-month gruelling battle by Jane to get the bank to pay up. Despite speaking to the bank manager at Marguerite’s branch, Barclays’ fraud department and its complaints team, she was stonewalled.
Early last month, she got a proforma letter from the bank stating her complaint had ‘been resolved and closed’. She was both livid and distraught.
On Friday, she told The Mail on Sunday: ‘The bank acted irresponsibly in letting an elderly, vulnerable woman walk into a branch and come out with £7,000 of cash which left her with less than £450 in her account.
‘Not enough care was shown to her. Why was I not contacted before the withdrawal was sanctioned?
‘I have spent nearly every day since this crime was committed trying to get Barclays to see sense.’ She added: ‘The Mail on Sunday has been brilliant in chasing up my stepmother’s case and making the bank own up to its incompetence.
‘I can now smile again and stop being a bore at parties banging on about Barclays. More importantly, my stepmother can carry on receiving the care she needs.’
Barclays said it had ‘no higher priority than the protection of customers’ funds’.
In the past year, it said that it had prevented £836million of fraud being committed against customers.
Elderly people are increasingly being targeted by crooks in the way Marguerite was. It is known as ‘financial grooming’.