My Barclays Bank account closed

[bjmarren]

Hi all,

I have lived in Bulgaria for more than 20 years and I received an SMS telling me my account has been closed, and also saying that I had been sent letters informing me that this would happen. I've haven't received any such letters and generally my post from Barclays UK usually doesn't get lost. I contacted Barclays using the number given, when I tried to get into my Barclays online account, and when I finally got through they confirmed that this was the case but couldn't do anything more than this, other than telling me to Google "my lost account" to find out what to do next. This I did only to see that they recommend contacting the Bank instead, if you know the name of the Bank and your account details, which I obviously do. I won't try and describe how I'm feeling about the whole thing, but was wondering if anyone else has been in this position and what they did. Obviously I want to get my money back from Barclays but more importantly arrange alternative arrangements for where my monthly pension should now be paid. I think the only thing I can do at the moment is to write to Barclays asking for them to re-open my account for a limited period to enable me to arrange alternative arrangements.

Any other thoughts or advice?

Brendan

[stevensfo]

Hi all,

I have lived in Bulgaria for more than 20 years and I received an SMS telling me my account has been closed, and also saying that I had been sent letters informing me that this would happen. I've haven't received any such letters and generally my post from Barclays UK usually doesn't get lost. I contacted Barclays using the number given, when I tried to get into my Barclays online account, and when I finally got through they confirmed that this was the case but couldn't do anything more than this, other than telling me to Google "my lost account" to find out what to do next. This I did only to see that they recommend contacting the Bank instead, if you know the name of the Bank and your account details, which I obviously do. I won't try and describe how I'm feeling about the whole thing, but was wondering if anyone else has been in this position and what they did. Obviously I want to get my money back from Barclays but more importantly arrange alternative arrangements for where my monthly pension should now be paid. I think the only thing I can do at the moment is to write to Barclays asking for them to re-open my account for a limited period to enable me to arrange alternative arrangements.

Any other thoughts or advice?

Brendan

I don't think you'll get very far with Barclays. I had a similar experience, though it was due to account inactivity. They did say that my account would become dormant etc and I completely forgot. For me, it was only for sentimental reasons since it was the first account I ever opened as a student and I still remember how everyone was so smiling and welcoming in those days, unlike the androids you meet today. No, they could not re-open the account. Once closed, that's it!

Do you not have an 'address for communication' in the UK via a parent, sibling or relative? That's all they require.

However, you can also explore some of the pan-European banks: Vivid, N26, Bunq, Revolut and EMIs: Monese, Wise, Sogexia, Paysend.

Vivid and N26 are German banks. Bunq is Dutch.

Revolut has a great easy app and you can transfer pounds to euros very cheaply.

Steve

[didds]

I'd be requesting copies of the letters they allegedly sent, and confirmation of the address they sent it to I think.

sadly I suspect that you'll get no joy from them as now you have no account with them its job done, sayonara

Otherwise its exhaust their complaints procedure that take it the financial ombudsman, but the impression i get from others here is that the FO is all but useless.



didds

[bjmarren]

Thank you both for your replies.

I must admit I have no real hope of them re-opening my account, even for a short period, as it is obviously a policy decision to stop providing banking services to UK citizens who live in Bulgaria, as they did back in 2019/20 for UK citizens living in and Italy and Belgium, for example. It's a done deal from that point, in my opinion. However, my account was very much an active account, as I received my company pension into it every month and used it to pay my credit card bills. It also has a substantial (for me) balance in it which I obviously want to transfer elsewhere.

Steve, thanks very much for the suggestions of other banks to consider, most of which I've never heard of. Revolut sounds a great alternative, as I recently (a couple of months ago) opened a Revolut account but never got round to using it or putting money into it. It sounds a sensible option for my Barclays balance and for my pension payments given the ease of pound/euro transfers.

I'll certainly ask them for copies of the letters they sent, thanks "didds" for reminding me to do that. I'll give them my sister's UK address to reply to as it will hopefully hurry things up. I'll let you know how I get on.

Brendan

[bjmarren]

Hi Steve,

I was wondering if I could pick my brains regarding Revolut, as you were very positive about it. The 2 things that I need to do as a priority is to get my, now old, Barclays balance transferred to another account, and get my monthly company pension payment paid into another account. In your experience with Revolut are the more established institutions, such as big banks and Government organisations ok with dealing with Revolut in terms of payments. I ask as I'll have to send a new payment mandate to get the pension paid into a new account.

Cheers,

Brendan

[stevensfo]

Hi Steve,

I was wondering if I could pick my brains regarding Revolut, as you were very positive about it. The 2 things that I need to do as a priority is to get my, now old, Barclays balance transferred to another account, and get my monthly company pension payment paid into another account. In your experience with Revolut are the more established institutions, such as big banks and Government organisations ok with dealing with Revolut in terms of payments. I ask as I'll have to send a new payment mandate to get the pension paid into a new account.

Cheers,

Brendan

Hi Brendan,

It's been quite a few years since I opened these accounts, so it's best to explore their websites. Certainly, Revolut had a sort number and account no. for UK banks, but I can't swear that this is still the case. To be honest, if it's free, or very cheap, you may want to open a few accounts. Monese is not an official bank, but also had a UK account number as well as an EU IBAN number. Wise is another option and has a good reputation.

What I would strongly advise is to set up two or three of these accounts and transfer money so it's not all in only one account. Only because these new fintech banks have a habit of completely blocking your account when asking for more documents. 99% of the time, Revolut is great, but they once blocked my account just when I had to transfer a few hundred quid to our son at uni. All they wanted was an ID document - which they already had - but it was a real pain! I received a grovelling apology but it made me very wary of having all my eggs in one basket etc!!

So check that Revolut, Monese, Wise still have a UK account number.

Meanwhile, can you not organise an address in the UK?

Best wishes,

Steve

[mc2fool]

Hmmmm.....

"Our award-winning security systems keep your money safe (not FSCS)". https://www.revolut.com/how-we-keep-your-money-safe

"Banks offer different protection to their customer money. For example, in the UK, this is known as Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) — a statutory scheme that repays UK customers if a bank goes out of business and can’t repay customers itself. As explained above, your Monese account is protected through the safeguarding process." https://monese.com/gb/en/blog/keep-money-safe

"Wise isn’t a bank. We’re an e-money institution. We’re required to keep your money safe and protected, and we do this differently to conventional banks. Unlike banks, we do not lend out customer money. Instead of protecting your money in a financial protection scheme (like FSCS), we safeguard your money. " https://wise.com/help/articles/2949821/ ... se-account

[mc2fool]

BTW, have you looked into the obvious, offshore UK bank accounts? I know that many impose ridiculous limits, like you have to have at least £50K deposited with them, but it may be worth looking through some.

https://moneyfacts.co.uk/current-accounts/offshore-bank-accounts/ could be a start....

[XFool]

Hmmmm.....

"Our award-winning security systems keep your money safe (not FSCS)". https://www.revolut.com/how-we-keep-your-money-safe

"Banks offer different protection to their customer money. For example, in the UK, this is known as Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) — a statutory scheme that repays UK customers if a bank goes out of business and can’t repay customers itself. As explained above, your Monese account is protected through the safeguarding process." https://monese.com/gb/en/blog/keep-money-safe

"Wise isn’t a bank. We’re an e-money institution. We’re required to keep your money safe and protected, and we do this differently to conventional banks. Unlike banks, we do not lend out customer money. Instead of protecting your money in a financial protection scheme (like FSCS), we safeguard your money. "

"Hmmmm....." indeed. Apart from the only time I've ever had a fraudulent transaction on any of my card accounts was when some cash was mysteriously transferred out of my CC account to an unknown Wise account.

Just saying.

[bjmarren]

Thanks you all for your replies, all useful information and helpful advice.

As regards my monthly company pension, I'll think I'll get it paid into our local dual leva account here in Bulgaria, as it'll be used for our monthly expenses from October onwards. I'm not sure I'd want to have another 2 or 3 accounts to juggle with, but as I've already got a Revolut account, I'll probably use it, as and when it seems useful to do so, but thanks again Steve for the suggestions. It might come in useful for receiving dividends from our Charles Stanley account as we'll have to think of an alternative account for its funding and withdrawing funds from that as well, given we won't be able to continue using the Barclays account.

Thanks for the link for the offshore accounts mc2fool, I'll definitely take a look there. I did have a quick look at Barclays International, but it seems keeping a minimum of 100k is a requirement, so that would definitely count me out.

However, I did make progress regarding the closing of my Barclays account. I eventually managed to speak to a very helpful person from the "Your Barclays Team" who although couldn't actually bring up my account details, as they didn't have access, did manage to bring up the last letter that was sent to me regarding the closing of my account. As a result I now have access to the online form that needs to be completed that will result in my closing balance being sent to an account of my choice. According to the link, www.barclays.co.uk/reclaim-EEA the whole process should take no more than 10 working days, as long as the information provided is complete.

I'll report back when the whole saga is over!

Brendan

[didds]

purely out of nosey interest, where was the letter they allegedly unearthed regarding closure sent?

And was it really just the one?

[bjmarren]

Hi didds,

Apologies for not getting back to you but I didn't expect any further replies so didn't follow up the thread.
The "Your Team Barclays" person confirmed that the address on the letters was correct but it is strange that that all 3 of them, sent over a 6 month period failed to arrive, whereas another letter sent by Barclays on a different subject arrived ok, as has previous ones.

Another blow is that I had hoped to use my Bulgarian registered Revolt account to pay my UK credit card bills, as Bank of Scotland shows Revolut as one of the banks options, but only as a UK bank, not Revolt Bulgaria. I'll now probably have to pay the balance using my local Bulgarian leva or Euro account, which will probably mean having to get Bank of Scotland's correspondent account details, which will probably mean another 40 minutes on the phone to them! Grrgh!

Brendan

[mc2fool]

Another blow is that I had hoped to use my Bulgarian registered Revolt account to pay my UK credit card bills, as Bank of Scotland shows Revolut as one of the banks options, but only as a UK bank, not Revolt Bulgaria. I'll now probably have to pay the balance using my local Bulgarian leva or Euro account, which will probably mean having to get Bank of Scotland's correspondent account details, which will probably mean another 40 minutes on the phone to them! Grrgh!

Surely all you should need is the IBAN and BIC for your account, which are readily available on logging in online (at least for me!).

[bjmarren]

Hi mc2fool,

Perhaps I should explain. I downloaded the Bank of Scotland (BOS) app (issuer of my Mastercard) and from there tried to my pay credit card bill by using the "pay credit card" option, giving my Revolut account as the account that was providing the funds. However, when I selected Revolut from the list of banks given as an option, it transferred me to Revolut but I got the message that my country, i.e. Bulgaria is not supported, i.e. I cannot grant consent to BOS to debit my Revolut account.

Perhaps if I simply use my Revolut account to make an international payment in sterling, with as you say simply using the IBAN and BIC of BOS it will work. Is that you were suggesting? I still don't actually have any fund in my Revolut account but could transfer them from my local leva account, which is what I'll do tomorrow first thing. If Charles Stanley are happy for me to use my Revolut to fund my trading account and have funds transferred to my Revolut account, this should solve the problem of paying my credit card in future.

[mc2fool]

Hi mc2fool,

Perhaps I should explain. I downloaded the Bank of Scotland (BOS) app (issuer of my Mastercard) and from there tried to my pay credit card bill by using the "pay credit card" option, giving my Revolut account as the account that was providing the funds. However, when I selected Revolut from the list of banks given as an option, it transferred me to Revolut but I got the message that my country, i.e. Bulgaria is not supported, i.e. I cannot grant consent to BOS to debit my Revolut account.

Perhaps if I simply use my Revolut account to make an international payment in sterling, with as you say simply using the IBAN and BIC of BOS it will work. Is that you were suggesting? I still don't actually have any fund in my Revolut account but could transfer them from my local leva account, which is what I'll do tomorrow first thing. If Charles Stanley are happy for me to use my Revolut to fund my trading account and have funds transferred to my Revolut account, this should solve the problem of paying my credit card in future.

Ok, well it sounds like the "pay credit card" option would, in fact, set up a direct debit to "pull" the money from the account you choose, but £ sterling denominated direct debits are only available from UK banks.

(There is SEPA direct debits for Euro denominated ones which are pan-European, including the UK.)

I may have confused which account you wanted the correspondent account details for. If it's your BOS current a/c then, as I say, you can get that from your BOS internet banking account, possibly also from the app.

If it's for the account to pay your credit card then see Pay from overseas at https://www.bankofscotland.co.uk/credit ... -card.html, and you should be able to do that from any account, including your local leva account.

[bjmarren]

Hi mc2fool,

Once again thank you for the info and the links. You have really helped me over the last month or so and I'm really grateful.
Just to clarify, I haven't actually got a BOS current account, only the credit card that they issued. This was a benefit of becoming a member of the Principle Civil Service Pension Scheme (PCSPS) over 40 years ago and I've had it ever since, together with the Barclays account that has now been closed. I don't know why I couldn't mange to get the IBAN and BIC of BOS from their website as I rummaged around in it for about 30 minutes and didn't find it, but I know I'm not that intuitive most of the time.

I'm still a bit confused about what I can do with my Revolut account. Can I pay my UK credit card bill using Revolut, or can it only be paid using my leva online account with my Bulgarian bank.

Thanks for bearing with me.

Brendan

[mc2fool]

Just to clarify, I haven't actually got a BOS current account, only the credit card that they issued.

Ah, ok.

I don't know why I couldn't mange to get the IBAN and BIC of BOS from their website as I rummaged around in it for about 30 minutes and didn't find it, but I know I'm not that intuitive most of the time.

Sometimes the simplest works. I just googled for "how to pay my bank of scotland credit card" and that page came up top.

I'm still a bit confused about what I can do with my Revolut account. Can I pay my UK credit card bill using Revolut, or can it only be paid using my leva online account with my Bulgarian bank.

That, I have no idea about...

[bjmarren]

I'm still a bit confused about what I can do with my Revolut account. Can I pay my UK credit card bill using Revolut, or can it only be paid using my leva online account with my Bulgarian bank.

That, I have no idea about...

Nor I at the moment but once I have some sterling in the account I'll give it a go! Charles Stanley are indicating that I can use my Revolut account if it is UK based, but given I had to provide my Bulgarian mobile number to which a link is sent for you to download the app, I guess the answer is "No" to that but they also said they could provide alternative arrangements, to which I am awaiting the details.

This issue is taking over my life at the moment!

Brendan

[bjmarren]

See I got my "quote" wrong! Should teach me to use the preview option before sending.

Moderator Message:
fixed for you (chas49)

[pje16]

you can edit it if you're quick enough after posting - within 2-3 mins I find