expensive weekend? expensive year! a cautionary tale.
Okay to you maybe it's not much money but I only work part-time and for the first time in my life I'd actually managed to save up some money. Over the course of a year I managed to stash about £760.
Took it to the bank - paid it in over the counter - sorted.
Except they lost it.
Won't even talk to me about it!
Really don't recommend banking with Santander...
(boduchess, Thu 13 May 2010, 18:24, 10 replies)

...and
people tell me I'm part of the tin-hat brigade when I mention that banks do this kind of thing.
(dchurch bah, Thu 13 May 2010, 18:25, closed)

you need to get onto the Ombudsman...
presuming you've got no receipt??

there should be CCTV of you entering the branch. Get on it. Seriously.
( Sallyrsm, Thu 13 May 2010, 18:39, closed)

no receipt ( yeah I know - I stupidly thought that I was putting it into a bank and it was safe. I didn't realize it wasn't in there until about 3 weeks later when I got a statement by which time receipt long gone).
They took so long to deal with it that CCTV has been taped over. And like I said - they're still not returning my calls/ giving me an answer even though I've been in about six times so far...
(boduchess, Thu 13 May 2010, 18:42, closed)

Go here.
Golden rule: keep all correspondence in writing.

Write to them (recorded signed for), stating your case, as calmly and rationally as possible. stick to the facts, know what you want them to do: 1)acknowledge their error, and 2) credit your account. state this clearly. state you will only deal with them in writing. Give them a timescale for a reply (say, 14 calendar days). Keep a record of it.

then if you have got no satisfaction, take all the records of your dealings, and take it up with this lot:

www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/consumer/complaints.htm

(sorry for lack of lols...)
(GoodLord doesn't have time for sigs., Thu 13 May 2010, 19:10, closed)

Find a solicitor
ou don't need to pay them for much of their time, but simply cc all of your email and written correspondence to them and tell the bank to copy any responses to the solicitor too. The solicitor doesn't need to write any expensive letters or make any expensive phone calls yet.

You need a paper trail for everything, even the fact that they are refusing to answer you and a solicitor can bear witness to that. The courts will take a very dim view of them stonewalling you if it comes to it, but if it's your word against theirs it's really hard to show anything happened. Email is good for this, since you can show that it's been sent and your solicitor can show that it's been received. Recorded mail is good too, but it's harder to show that it contained what you say it did.

It's also important for them to have told you in writing why they can't investigate this properly. You'll find them an awful lot less willing to lie in writing. You also need to write down the name of anybody you deal with. People are also much more reluctant to lie to you and fob you off if you can hold them personally accountable for what they've said and done.
(Mr T, Fri 14 May 2010, 12:47, closed)

Write a letter to them FFS

( The Scrunt Wants a Dozen Pints, Thu 13 May 2010, 19:44, closed)

Book an appointment
with a Business Manager, or a Pension advisor, someone who will talk to you in a private room. As soon as the door closes, push your chair up to the door and sit down, telling the hapless advisor that neither of you are leaving until you get your money back in cash, right here, right now. Tell them that you are accepting no cheques from them, no investigations, no outcomes further down the line. You want YOUR money, NOW, or you want someone with the authority to give you your money, here, NOW.

He will poo himself, threaten to call the police etc, to which you heartily agree and suggest they ring the BBC, ITV and Sky News, the Sun and the Daily Mail as well for some extra publicity. Be polite, make no threats, simply bar the door and let them use their telephone. They will act with indecent haste.

Lloyds Bank certainly did, a couple of years ago, for me. A client paid money into an account which I had closed 2 days before, nearly £11K, and Lloyds were denying any knowledge, declaring that it was IMPOSSIBLE to pay money into a closed account, there was no money in that space, it hadn't been paid etc, that it would automatically bounce back to the client after a day or so etc. Slightly differently to your situation, the client did have a PAC number, which all transfers can be tracked with and that stated that the transfer had taken place (or that the client HAD paid money somewhere), yet Lloyds were adamant it had not, it was impossible to do such a thing.
After weeks of letting them "investigate" ie. do fuck all, I snapped and got an appointment with the Business Manager who shat himself and told me he was catching a flight that afternoon to go on holiday with his family.
"Oh no you ain't, sunshine, not if I don't get my cash."

He made two phone calls, and miraculously they located my money instantly, in the account which had been closed, the one that it was IMPOSSIBLE to pay into. They would send out a cheque that day.
Um, no, not acceptable, I wanted cash, right there please, I had bills to pay.

The cash was brought in a brown envelope by a flunky and left outside the door. Amazingly, it was short by about £1.32 and the poor sod scrabbled in his pocket for the change. I let him off the final 30p and walked out head held high, expecting to be pounced on by SO19 at any second.

CCTV these days can be stored indefinitely, now that bulky tapes aren't involved, I think they are bullshitting you. If their CCTV isn't up to much, or they have a light-fingered cashier (who will probably not just pinch £760 once, anyone who would risk their job and liberty like that will do it for a lot more, perhaps over several occasions) that's another story, and I doubt they want that publicising. I would imagine that if you make a proper fuss, they will weigh you in to keep you quiet, even if they call it a "goodwill gesture" - banks, like credit card companies, will go out of their way to kill any stories of slack security, it literally is bad business, obviously!
(Rsoles, Thu 13 May 2010, 20:37, closed)

I very much like your style! Abbey National/Santander now unfortunately have these open-plan office things so not sure barricading the door would work. I am writing to the ombudsman blokey - it's not so much about the money (actually it is probably 100 percent about the money...) but the fact that they won't even open into discussion about it.
Keep going into the bank and talking loudly about their bank being unsafe/missing money etc which makes the cashiers blink a lot but not do anything.
Yes I find it pretty hard to believe they don't hang on to CCTV for longer....surely for their own security it should be around longer.
Another thing which I was quite surprised by....they don't have computerised records....they say someone will have to go through every single one of the day's receipts by hand etc....well go ahead do that then!!!
argh!
Your advice/help is very much appreciated!
I've not given up!
I may have to arrange a little sit-in sometime soon I think!
(boduchess, Fri 14 May 2010, 5:45, closed)

Which branch is it?
Major sit-in could be fun. All walk in with sunglasses and scowling looks, and not say a word. Alternative flashmob?
( Duke Of Belmsford has got 99 records, but Jay-Z ain't one, Fri 14 May 2010, 8:35, closed)

I did
a similar thing with my misses' bank.

Pushed a chair up against the door. Threats to call the police were met with "Please do. Don't make idle threats, get on with it, I'm sure they'll be glad to hear of your theft..." etc...

Oddly, the dosh turned up within about 5 mins.
(dchurch bah, Mon 17 May 2010, 12:45, closed)