Ah, yes, my experience earlier this year was pretty much like this. Barclays didn’t get quite so bad, but even so. Most recently, they have sent me a letter demanding I pay bank charges on an unused account that I requested they close back in May.
“When I eventually managed to speak to a person, he candidly admitted that he was sure that no scam was involved, but still demanded to see my Austrian’s friend’s tax bill, and past examples of our correspondence.”
When he told the bank that he considered its demands a gross invasion of both his and his friend’s privacy (and likely data rules) and totally disproportionate in the circumstances, he says it still refused to transfer the money. The staff could have told him the payment was at his own risk, but wouldn’t.
The final indignity came when he said he was so fed up with his treatment that he wished to close his account: the bank announced it had shut him out of it.
“They said they had blocked it because there would be a risk that I would then make the transfer by other means. It was completely mad,” he says.
This is an example of perverse outcomes. If banks were not liable for paying the victims of scams, this behaviour wouldn’t be enabled as it is.
That same bank recently refused to allow a transfer of funds to one of my savings accounts. I considered complaining, but instead transferred the funds to another of my current accounts at another bank and made the transfer from there. The point of my tale; never rely on just one bank.