Whether you do all your banking online or still go into a branch, remembering your bank code is very important. Sometimes banks make mistakes and sometimes customers make the mistakes. Usually, they are easy fixes. But for one customer of Barclays Bank, his mistake almost cost him his inheritance.
Peter Teich typed in the bank code and ended up sending his 193,000-pound inheritance to another customer. Once he figured out his mistake, he contacted the bank and the bank “asked the person who received the cash for permission to return the money, but he refused-and Barclays told Peter it had no powers to force him to return the funds as it wasn’t its own error”. Peter Teich was set to inherit this money from his father. Accidentally putting in the wrong code should not mean that a customer can get your money and then refuse to send it back to the bank. How can someone in good conscious really keep that money when it was received in error? And then is asked to return it and they say no? That is just ridiculous!
The bank did offer to credit him 25 pounds as a gesture for the inconvenience. Oh, I feel better. 193,000 pounds and 25 pounds are all the same thing.
So What Happens To Peter and His Money?
Peter decided that he was not going to let this go, so he went ahead and hired a legal time. Lee writes that Peter spent “12,000 pounds in legal fees just to find the other Barclays customer’s identity, then forked out another 34,000 pounds to get a freezing injunction to stop the man from continuing to spend his cash”. Good for you Peter! Fighting for YOUR inheritance money was the right call here. And, fortunately, the courts agreed and he got his money back from the other customer.
Peter wasn’t done though. He then went to Barclays and demanded that they pay for his legal fees. However, the bank refused to do so. So, Peter went to the local paper, The Guardian, to tell his story which they published. Barclays finally came to its senses and paid “46,000 pounds in legal costs along with 750 pounds in compensation”. I’m so happy he got his money and fought for it. He is 74 years old and though you can’t take it with you when you go, that money was still rightfully his from his father and he couldn’t fight for it. After all of the stress, this had to be on him, I hope he takes a trip or buys himself a little something with that money. But Peter, if you read this, please don’t spend it all in one place!
