A VILLAGE church has slammed Barclays after the bank closed their account.
Wilsden Trinity Church in Bradford started receiving “threateningly-toned” letters 18 months before the bank pulled the plug, the church’s treasurer claimed.
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Barclays reportedly demanded information regarding the church’s activities and details about each trustee, Telegraph and Argus reported.
Wilsden Trinity claimed they sent the relevant information, however the bank sent off a response while the church treasurer was away in Australia.
The church added that Barclays allegedly failed to attempt to contact the treasurer by phone or email, and the bank closed their account after they received no response.
As a result, the church has now fallen into debt.
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In an open letter to Barclays, members of the Wilsden Trinity Church Meeting said: “Closing the account in this way has caused the church a number of significant problems.
“Many of our bills were paid by Direct Debit and many of our members paid money into the account through Standing Order.
“These have all stopped.
“In addition, we’ve been unable to bank the weekly collections or, ourselves, pay bills or send money to charities.”
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Wilsden Trinity Church also alleged that other parish councils and community groups have also had accounts closed or restricted by Barclays.
“We are in the process of opening a new account with a different bank, but this is taking some time and, at present, we do not have a bank account,” said members of Wilsden Trinity Church.
“There has been a financial cost to us and a cost in terms of our reputation and relationship with those who supply services and are paid by Direct Debit.”
The church submitted a complaint directly to Barclays’ complaints team in early October.
A spokesperson for Barclays said: “As part of our ongoing responsibility to help prevent financial crime, and to meet our regulatory obligations, we are required to keep up to date information regarding our customers’ accounts.
“We share a series of communications with our customers including writing to them by post, through alert banners on our digitally active customers’ online and mobile banking as well as reminder SMS text messages and emails asking customers to supply us with some important information relating to their Barclays Business account.
“In cases where we do not receive a response with up-to-date account information, we will proceed with the application of card blocks and account restrictions, ahead of issuing final closure arrangements.
“In this instance, repeated attempts were made by the bank between March 2023 to October 2023 for the important information we had requested to be provided.
“As a result of not receiving the necessary information relating to the business account, we were left with no alternative but to close the account.
“The letters are not threatening and there are seven officials on the account that we can accept the information we were seeking from.
“We were not informed by any of the officials that the treasurer was unable during September. Had we been informed we could have awaited their reply in due course.
“We fully understand the issues this can cause customers, and while we do not accept there has been any bank error, as a gesture of goodwill we have offered to re-open their account to allow more time for the information we have requested to be provided.”
It comes after a married couple have told how NatWest ‘lost’ £628,000 of their retirement savings.
Read more on The Sun
Kevin McCormac, 75, and his wife Sarah say they signed up to the bank’s best buy two-year fixed-rate Isa over the summer.
But after two months, the West Sussex couple’s combined savings of £600,000 from an Investec stocks and shares Isas had still not been stored in the Isa, MailOnline reported.
Your rights when your account is closed
BANKS are allowed to close accounts without notice if they suspect fraud.
But if you think your account has been closed unfairly, you can complain to the provider involved.
If you don’t get a response within eight weeks or you’re not happy with the response you do get, you can take your complaint to the free Financial Ombudsman Service.
The Ombudsman says most of the complaints it sees about bank account closures or freezes involve:
- the bank not giving enough notice – the Ombudsman suggests that between 30 and 60 days’ notice is a reasonable unless there are suspicions fraud is involved
- maladministration
- the bank giving conflicting information or advice
- the bank showing unlawful discrimination
- the bank failing to follow procedures properly
If your account is closed, you should also remember to rearrange any direct debit or standing orders as these will have to be paid manually until you can get a new account.
