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, 2 replies)

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)