Barclays Bank policy of silence. A credit card fraud story.

Thanks Caomhin1, for taking the time to read it all and to mark it as good stuff.

Hi there liamssoft. Everybody keeps on telling me that but that's not my point. At least not by now. I've been a Barclays Bank Client for a long time now and more than anything else related to this situation, what I want is a clarification and some apologizes. I wan to know why did this happened and what will Barclays Bank do so that this kind of stuff will not happen again. I would love to have Barclays Bank PLC telling me that this is not the usual procedure in Barclays International and that Barclays Bank Portugal will indeed, apologize.

Sorry for my lousy english and thank you very much for the support.

My story is very similar. Several months ago someone called my Barclays branch, claimed it was me and had forgotten his online password and was promptly issued a new one. By email. Later on they emailed a request for a bank transfer which went through without a hitch, emptying my account. For nearly a month i have been sending emails (all apparently got lost) and faxes and so far has received nothing but silence in response. No idea what to do.

I had a problem with Barclay's Bank.  I purchased a membership to a bogus company who was supposed to supply leads for foreclosed properties.  I asked for a refund from the company, who refused to give me one.  Since I put the $299 membership fee on my Barclay's card, I disputed the charge.  Barclay's did issue me a temporary credit back, pending investigation of this charge.  This bogus merchant refused to issue a credit bank to Barclay's!  So I was asked to send everything back to the merchant, which I did.  Barclay's reapplied the charge back to my card and refused to do anything further to help.

Needless to say, I have been very disappointed with Barclay's.  They are completely unsympathetic to my case and have done little to negotiate a proper settlement. 

I would not recommend their services to anyone who wants to be treated fairly.  LCB

I faced the same situation. I am facing lots of issue with Barclays credit card. And no one is there to help.

Yeap. And the story (already known in Portugal as the novela Barclays something like the Barclays soap opera) keeps going and going.

Although Barclays Bank already payed for all the movements made with the Credit Card they took 2 months to do it and they've never replied to any of the e-mails or letters sent. They just sent a letter saying that they will pay and that they're sorry for all the trouble. We'll, I just think that's not the way...

And now, two weeks after, they took without any notice almost 600 euros from the account and just after almost 1 hour on the phone and 2 e-mails they said that it was to pay the full debt in the credit card 'cause they've payed the full amount in debt. And without any notice? Well, that putted the account on the negative side again...

It seems that Barclays Bank, at least here in Portugal is just not working at all.

Barclay's has been yanking me around for over a year.  They solicited the account using deceptive practices claiming to have been referred to me as a potential customer through a professional association I had recently joined in November 2006.  About 45 days later (mid January 2007), I discovered this was a lie AND on the first statement there was an unauthorized and fraudulent insurance premiums billed. 

I called the bank to dispute, they refused to provide information, proof of authorization, and refused to send fraud affidavits.  When I questioned the legality of the charges, they became increasingly rude and beligerant.  I canceled the card and paid the uncontested balance in full in February 2007. 

From March through July, they continued to allow fraudulent charges from the insurance carrier, at some points allowing multiple charges within the same month ranging from $30 - $140 to be added to the closed account.  Because the balance was at ZERO since the account was closed, they elected to add a $29 late fee and $29 over limit fee each consecutive month as well as 30% interest on the fraudulent activity.

With no cooperation from Barclay's (including refusal of a physical mailing address) I contacted my State Dept of Banking and Insurance who informed me the bank is not properly registered to solicit or conduct business in my state.  They were, however, able to take action with the insurance carrier.  Within 30 days, I received letters of apology from the carrier who proclaimed a billing error on their part and all charges were reversed by the carrier. 

Barclay's refused to remove all associated fees in violation of the Fair Credit Billing Act, and since they were reporting this to the credit reporting agencies they were in violation of te Fair Accurate Credit Reporting Act, as well as a fee specific laws surrounding fraud and ID theft.

All letters were disregarded and the bank (oddly enough) never even placed a collection call.  If they were legitimate charges, you bet I would have been harassed. 

In January 2008 I get a collection letter for a third party agent.  I send them certified, return receipt all the history proving the debt is invalid and request immediate correction to the credit reports.  The collection agency finds in my favor and indicates they will correct the credit history profile as requested.  I call a month later not seeing the change, and was advised Barclay's pulled the account back not allowing them to make the changes.

So June rolls around and I am denied a student loan because of the false information reporte don my credit history profile ($750) illustrating extortion and fraud committed by Barclay's. I call Barclay's and try again to get this matter resolved.  I am transferred to yet another third party collection agency.  I send them all the pertinent documents and the SECOND agency finds in my favor (Thankfully I have MP3 recorded evidence of that).  They promise to credit the account back to zero and fix the credit report.  I have an appointment to call back the following week to determine who is sending hte confirmation letter that this has been completed and the matter is closed.   I am told once again that Barclay's pulled the acocunt back - once again prohibiting the corrections.

I call the bank and the collection agency's instruction and finally after 16 requests to speak to a supervisor get transferred to someone who alleged to be a supervisor.  I say alleged, because I don't see how a supervisor would make it to that level in any organization with the rude, unprofessional and uncooperative attitude.  I explained the situation, offered to fax/overnight documentation which she refused. 

This is where the real fraud and predatory banking practices come into place.  The supervisor now - after all these months suddenly claims there are "unpaid" charges that warrant the extortion fees.  iI ask her what the charges were for and when they were incurred.  She doesn't know when they were incurred but said first is was a $40 charge for a tropical fish tank.  I told her I don't have a fish tank, I never bought a fish tank and there must be a mistake.  The charge was initiated at a retail store halfway across the country from where I live (but again no dates).  I indicated this was not my charge and I was told I was lying.  I asked for validating evidence of the debt, then she indicated that the fish tank charge was $1,149 and asked me to pay that with another credit card. 

The problem here is that the amount both collection agencies investigated and found to be invalid and the account legitimately paid in full was only $740.  Now they are looking for more than what they even said I actually owe.  Talk about interntionally confusing the consumer.

I ask for proof of balance including sales receipts and I am told I am "too stupid" to understand how to read the statements and they refuse the proof.  So I ask for a mailing address to send a formal dispute letter overnight.  They refuse to provide a mailing address that will provide me a signed receipt. 

So I get the address from the Federal Banking Commission and send it anyway to the CEO of US operations, Richard Vague.  he refuses the document and it is marked "return to sender".

I do some more research and make a few calls to some other banking professionals I know personally and find out Clint Walker is the General Legal Counsel out there in Delaware.

I send everything to him and state that if there is any unpaid charge, which I doubted, that I required validating evidence, sales receipts, signatures, to show if the debt was incurred legally.  I also requested clarification of the alleged balance.  This 5 page letter, plus supporting documentation and a disc of MP3's totaling 6 conversations with their third party agents and the rude supervisor.

In response I get a "balance due" statement for $750 and a letter stating they were adding a $3.00 charge for processing my request and sending me these "details".

I write to Mr. Walker again, and tell him exactly what laws he has violated, demanded correction of the credit report and threatened law suit listing all the charges/violations I know of AND provided him the attorney's name that is waiting for Mr. Walker's next action.

About a week later, I get another letter from the Executive office now alleging that the new charges was not for a fish tank, but for gas and storage.  In this letter they encourage me to pay one balance, then encourage me to contact the collection agency that insists I don't owe any money a second balance.  Again, they can't provide dates of service, sales receipts or any other information.

Recently, another bank card called me up and informed me THEY detected potentially fraudulent use on my charge card and asked I verify charges.  The charges WERE fraudulent and the authorities are involved, as well as my identity theft recovery insurance policy.  With quick acting, we discovered another new trade line opened in June 2008 and charges off just this month that I never knew about.

This may have been the start of the problem as there were various inquiries - unauthorized - stemming back to January 2007. 

So, what I am seeing is that Barclay's either is lying about these "sudden and mysterious" charges of unknown origin and unknown amounts to extort money holding my career and educational goals hostage  OR they have aided and abbedded the perpetrators using my identity to commit fraud.  Considering they committed fraud from DAY 1 with their solicititation of my business, I wonder how they obtained my personal information because that very well may be the kicker in this.

I say, forums like this are very important to consumer awareness.  We need to band together to create change in the the business community. 

An update to my post from Aug 1

HASNT ANYBODY LEARNT YET GET ALL THE LOANS YOU CAN OFF ANY BANK SPEND SPEND SPEND HAVE A GOOD TIME AND A YEAR LATER OFFER THEM 1 POUND A MONTH CREDIT WORTHYNESS DOSENT MEAN SHIT ANYMORE  IT CLEARS IN 6 YEARS AND YOUR FREE TO START AGAIN

I've been a Barclays customer for over 25 years and have noticed
that the service has got worse and worse. The straw that broke
the cammel's back though was when Barclays left me stranded without
any money for most of my recent boliday to Crete. I tried my
debit (Connect) card in an ATM in Stalis but got a "refer to card issuer"
message. I thought nothing of this - Stalis is a small village and probably
the network connections were down. A couple of days later I visited the
main city on Crete - Hiraklion where there seem to be even more banks than
on the Isle of Man or Jersey (or the Cayman's for that matter). First
one gives - "refer to card issuer", second one "refer to card issuer", third
one same. Now I'm starting to think that there may be a fault with my debit
card so my partner tries her Nationwide card (Note: Nationwide does not
charge their customers fees for foreign transactions !) - it works fine.
Undeterred I try another ATM and another and another ...
until after a couple of dozen I finally give up.
Back at the ranch I decide to give the number Barclays have given me for
their call centre a ring to find out WTF is going on. Helpfully there
is a reverse-the-charge-anywhere-in-the-world number. Unhelpfully it
doesn't work (Note to Barclays: Greece is that funny shaped country
in the south east corner of Europe - turn right at Bulgaria). So I try
to give the other number a ring  and guess what ... yep the dreaded "choose 1 for ..
choose 2 for ... " messages. After a half a dozen menus I'm prompted to enter
my card number (doesn't sound very secure but WTH ... ) and guess what the
line goes dead. I try again this time with the "stolen card" line only
to be put on hold while the phone steadily eats up the last of my euros
at international call rates (to the UK ... during office hours ...). Why do
Barclays charge customers to report stolen cars - are they punishing them ?
Eventually I hang up in exasperation and the hotel owner, noticing my rather flustered
manner asks what it wrong. I explain the situation and she looks at the
bank card and with a look of deja vu says that "many people have had problems
with these cards, perhaps it is your bank"). You've got to hand it these
people - they didn't invent philopsophy for nothing.
Later on I'm drowning my sorrows in an (obviously cheap !) beer or two
and happen to recount my woes to the barmaid (bit of Dean Martin/Frank Sinatra
in the background please ...). Without prompting she says - "you're not with Barclays
are you, people have had problems all summer with getting money out of the ATM
with them".
So now the penny/euro has finally dropped. Barclays has been blocking the cash
withdrawls of holiday makers all summer leaving them stranded high and dry.
In light of this my partner and I scraped up the last of our euros and worked
out an emergency daily ration to see us through. No more evening meals, no car
hire, no trips out just a whole week and half of scrimping and saving all thanks
to Barclays. Welcome to the return of the student budget holiday - I'd have brought
a backpack and an InterRail pass had I known.
On return to blighty where at least Barclays have graciously allowed me to withdraw
my own money I came home to two letters on the doormat from "the bank that likes
to say no" (to cash withdrawls by its own customers). It turns out
that they had thoughfully decided to block my card because they thought it was
being used fradulently. How very considerate. Seems they've introduced a new
Barclays Fraud Detection service supposedly for my benefit but not actually got around
to telling me about it (perhaps they were too busy sending out unwanted
adverts for loans). Maybe Barclays assume that their customers never go
on holiday abroad or perhaps (because of the credit crunch) they don't want
to give up their sterling - who knows.
Anyway I'm currently chasing Barclays for compensation and I will let you
know how I get on once all the legal bits are tied up.
Moral of this story: if you are going abroad and don't want to use travellers
cheques get yourself a Nationwide account. Amazingly enough they do allow
their customers to withdraw their *own* money and they don't rip you off
with transaction charges like Barclays.

Great thread....Until i read this, I thought my girlfriend and i were going nuts....Barclays in France is no better than all these other branches that i am reading horror stories about...My girlfriend was living in Marseilles 2 years ago for a year, working on a project. She is French and I am American. She decided to open  a Barclays account, since her father had had one and never had a problem. She was personally welcomed and assisted by the Vice Director when she went downtown to the offices, and they couldnt do enough for her. She opened up a checking account and left it at that. periodically the Vice Director Philippe Bourdeau, would call her to let her know about investment opportunities, which she never acted on. He was overly attentive to her, even going so far as to offer to personally deliver her Visa card to her house ! She shrugged off the attention and went on with her life. At some point, i wired money to the account which came from the sale of a part of my business in the US; we had a little more than 100,000 Euros in total. When I went to marseille to visit her 14 or 15 months ago, we talked about what to do with the money...she said that Mr Bourdeau had been in touch with her urging her to move her money into a higher interest bearing account. We decided to stop by the bank to learn more. He wasnt happy to see me with her....but he spent half an hour with us urging us to move the bulk of the money into another account where we would earn much higher rates. I am at only an intermediate level in french, but my GF is French, and she let him know several times that we were not interested in ANYTHING in which the capital would be at risk. When i asked him if the account he was pushing was something like money market or a CD, he said...yes, it is similar but not exactly the same and reassured us that the capital was not at risk, just that the rate of interest could vary between 0% and something much higher. We asked for a prospectus, but was told there was nothing at the moment but that we would be mailed everything....We left without signing anything. A couple of weeks later, my GF asked for another meeting and was told the same thing...that we were stupid to leave our money in a basic checking account with low interest...that we were wasting a great opportunity. She then agreed to transfeer 100,000 Euros, the bulk of the account into the new account, which is what she and i had both agreed to. Barclays still did not have any literature on the new account; just trust me he said. This will be very financially rewarding for you.

When we both got back to the States, a month later, there was a banbk statement saying that 100,400 Euros had been withdrawn from our account, and that a new account had been opened for "Barclays Absolut Long Term" for 100,000 Euros, minus 3150 Euros "fee". I asked my GF what this was all about and she was completely puzzled, since this was not at all what we had been told. She said she had to get together some documents for a change of address form, and that when she contacted them about that, she would clear up the fees and over withdrawal. A few days later she sent an email, and then another one which remained unanswered (and still are!). She then called the bank to talk to Philippe. He had always been available before, but was "busy". he did not return that phone call, nor the subsequent 5-6 calls. Always "busy" or  "in a meeting". Out of frustration, she tried to call someone higher up in the bank., but couild not get past the secretary. Sometimes the phone went to voicemail, sometimes it just rang and rang. She called the Customer Seervice number, and was told she had to deal directly with the Marseille branch, who would not take phone calls. She called the paris HQ, which tlold her the same thing. I called customer service in the UK, which told me they had no authority over the actions of their French branches.....after 5-6 weeks of this, she finally managed to talk to the director in marseille, who said he would "look into" what happened. My GF emailed him the entire history, including copies of the multiple emails she had sent asking for the immediate closure of this account.....he nevert responded. She called again, when she had not heard from him, to ask what was going on. He said he never checked his email (!!!!!!) so he had no knowledge of her case.....

The short end to this story is that is has not ended. The money apparently was partially placed on the french stock market, so the account is now down to 70,000 Euros from 100,000. Through constant battling, my GF has managed to get the reimbursement of the intial 3150Euro "fee", but nothing else. She has repeatedly demanded, through a lawyer and in person and over the phone that the account be shut down and the monies reimbursed, to no avail. Barclays refuses to take any responsibility, they say, because my GF signed the withdrawal form.  the fact that they used patently deceptive and fraudulent practices to solicit this withdrawal, and then left her with absolutley no one to talk about resolve this, apparently is insignificant to them. She is attempting once again to withdraw the money....conveniently, the director is not in, his secretary neither. it is beyond belief that this bank still has a charter....its customer service isa  joke, and it apparently solicits deposits using whatever means possible...and then disappears. So far we have lost almost 30,000 Euros.....and no response from barclays. What a disgrace !

Something is going on at Barclays Bank of Delaware....the banking practices are changing evidently.

Here is the link to my post:

http://my.nowpublic.com/tech-biz/barclays-bank-delaware-commits-fraud-charlotte-nc-airport

Here is a link to "The Rip Off Report" where you can read other comments about Barclays Bank, Juniper Bank, which they bought out. You can file a complaint and have it added to the list here:

http://www.ripoffreport.com/

Pedro. My heart goes out to you and I have no doubts that every word of your blogg is true. I resolved never to use Barclays again after very poor treatment. Alas they bought the Woolwich Bank so I was back in their clutches. Since then I have had problem after problem.

Right now I am in Dallas on business and three times had my Debit Card declined to great embarrasment. The debits were for less than $50 and I have over $4,000 in my account. When the weekend falls at the beginning of a week I see that Barclays removes money from my account on the Friday in order to pay Direct Debits that are due on Monday and Tuesday. I have complained about this but the telephone representitive just denied that Barclays do this.

I hate Barclays bank. My honest belief is that they are the worst Western Bank in the world. Let's face it Pedro, if Barclays don't care about flushing the famous Woolworths chain of shops down the toilet then what chance do you and I have?

same happened with me to, but my case is different.
I have paid back the amount through check, but they made delay in clearing the check due to this they have charged me like 4000rs and i have rejected to pay the amount and now they keep on adding the finacial charges to that and calling me up for the payment 
guess now amt became 13000, one ***** girl UMA/Diwakar from chennai promised of reversal and ask for 350 rs to pay. I have payed the amount but did not get reversal on my credit card please be care full with these 

Chennai UMA (she talks 3rd language also) diwakar ranway...
her no 09884515195
she said me to come chennai for ***, she how well they treat with customers...