A GRANDAD has told how he has been left living in a near derelict house for more than a year after a bank paid him £110,000 – and then took it all back.
Bungling Barclays wrongly paid thousands of pounds into Russell Alexander’s account leaving him to believe he had inherited some money from a long-lost relative.
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But cautiously the 54-year-old checked – and all seemed correct.
Except it turned out that the money from a friend’s legacy had been paid to him in error.
Barclays withdrew the cash from his account – at first taking an extra £6,000 which they replaced – leaving Russell in a financial muddle.
The Financial Ombudsman decided that Barclays should pay Russell £500 in compensation – which he described as “outrageous and insulting” given the problems the bank’s error had caused.
Now Russell is facing an uncertain future.
His house would be worth more than half a million pounds if it was fully-renovated – but he is struggling with health issues.
He said: “I had been with the bank for more than 40 years and when I queried the money they said it was mine to spend.
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“I had planned to renovate the property which cost me £250,000, live in it and then use it to let out to holiday-makers.
“But now my future has been left completely up in the air – I have no money and a half-finished property. I would never have gone into this if I had known that the money wasn’t mine.
“I double-checked and asked the bank and they insisted it was genuine – right up to the day they suddenly decided it wasn’t.”
A spokesman for Barclays said: ”We are sorry to hear about this customer’s experience. It is evident that the sender of the funds selected the wrong recipient from their payee list when completing the on-line payment instructions.
“Unfortunately when the recipient queried the unexpected funds received in his account he was incorrectly advised he could keep the funds.
“Subsequently the funds were removed from his account after a claim from the noriginasl sender.
“However due to our errors an additional £6,000 received was incorrectly removed. This has been returned to the customer.”
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