Why couldn’t Barclays help my grieving brother?

COULD you help me retrieve more than £100,000 of my brother’s money from a dormant account with Barclays? The money was in a joint account held with his wife, who died last October.

Barclays initially said it had located it. He sent the documentation requested but then received a letter saying the account could not be found after all.

It is now 12 weeks since he sent the documents, including an official copy of his wife’s death certificate and he has heard nothing.

I am 73 and my brother is 82. This is causing us huge anxiety and stress.

M. T., Powys. Your brother lived in the Czech republic for some years and the account became dormant while he was caring for his sick wife. He has since returned to Wales and is currently living with you.

When he first wrote to his bank manager in April, the initial response was promising. Barclays replied on April 17, saying that the account had been found and asked for supporting identity documents.

He wrote back explaining that his wife had died last year. He then received a second letter on June 9. This was identical to the first, except his wife’s name was now included, which is a requirement on joint accounts.

The following day he sent the required documents, including a copy of his wife’s death certificate, which was in Czech, but was translated and notarised.

on June 12, Barclays wrote again — this time saying it had been unable to locate the account. And then silence.

When I made contact, Barclays leapt into action, admitting the letter saying the money could not be found was sent as a result of human error. ‘Feedback’ has now been passed to the relevant area.

Your brother’s money, £103,683.03, has been paid to him. Barclays has also added 8 pc interest for the time he did not have access to the money, an extra £890.82. It has also made a £300 goodwill payment. That’s a total of £104,873.85.

Barclays passes on its sincere condolences for your brother’s loss. A spokesman says: ‘ It is evident that, on this occasion, we have failed to provide the high levels of service that our customers can expect to receive, and we offer our apologies for this.’ I RECEIVED an email that I thought was from a fellow parish councillor asking me to purchase three £100 iTunes vouchers for her, as she was tied up all day in conference with the district council. But 20 minutes after doing so online at Currys PC World, another councillor told me this was a scam.

I called Currys to cancel the order, but it went unanswered and the line dropped out after an hour. I tried twice more that day and also emailed. The email remains unanswered. I emailed again to state that I would refuse to accept the parcel when it was delivered on May 21, which I did, and DPD returned it to Currys.

On June 1, I received three separate emails from Currys, each detailing a refund of £110, the additional £10 being the delivery charge.

This was odd, as the order had been for three £100 vouchers plus £10.

A couple of days later, two credit transactions appeared on my credit card statement, each for £110. So, to date, I am still waiting for £90.

There is still no response from Currys by telephone.

M. S., Norwich. I Am baffled by this scam. If someone had asked you to buy the vouchers online and email them to that person, then I could understand it. But as you took physical delivery, it is difficult to see how they could complete the heist without actually knocking on your door.

Perhaps your choice of physical delivery unwittingly foiled their plans.

Currys says a technical error prevented it from making the full refund.

It has now returned the remaining £90 and generously offered a £ 40 goodwill gesture for the inconvenience you suffered when the phones were not answered. IN JANUARY, my gas smart meter went loony, galloping away with fictitious usage numbers. This happened several times. British Gas agreed it was faulty and replaced it in April.

However, British Gas is still billing me using data generated by the faulty meter, resulting in an alleged usage which is twice as much as normal.

AH. YET another daft smart meter. I receive so many complaints about these that I wouldn’t consider having one installed.

British gas confirms that your bill was based on incorrect figures and that it had not been updated correctly — even though you had informed it of the problem. The errors have now been corrected.

In light of what it admits is poor service and overcharging, it has cleared all usage costs associated with the old meter for the disputed period from January 27 to April 18, when the meter was exchanged.

It has refunded £195.10, lowered your payments to £74 per month and credited £100 to go towards your winter usage.

A spokesman says: ‘We’re very sorry for the inconvenience and concern that this situation has caused. mr B is happy with the outcome and has closed the complaint.’