You ARE entitled to compensation if your online banking is hit by an outage: SYLVIA MORRIS explains how
Bank websites and apps seem to go down frequently at the moment, leaving their customers unable to access their own money.
But you don’t have to take it lying down. Banks pay out millions of pounds in compensation for letting down their customers in this way – so make sure you get your share if you’re entitled to it.
Not only can it cause distress when your bank’s website or app doesn’t work, it can also be an expensive problem if you are left unable to pay a bill and suffer late fees.
The problem appears to be growing as more of us turn to internet banking.
Last month, the Treasury Select Committee found nine out of the top banks and building societies reported at least 803 hours, the equivalent of more than a month, of unplanned systems outages in the past two years.
Among the worst was the recent Barclays failure at the end of January which, for some customers, amounted to three days of chaos.
Offline: The Treasury Select Committee found nine out the top banks and building societies reported at least 803 hours of unplanned tech and systems outages in the last two years
The bank expects to pay out £5 million to £7.5 million in compensation to its customers who suffered loss or distress and inconvenience as a result – and has issued an apology.
For example, if you went overdrawn as a result of its failure, the bank will not charge interest on overdrafts from January 31 to February 3.
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It says it will fix this automatically. It also says if you paid your Barclaycard payment over that fateful pay-day weekend, but it did not show in your statement, it will resolve problems such as late payment fees. I would check that it has.
If you have been left out of pocket in other ways, Barclays should contact you and ask for additional information or to tell you what it is doing to remedy the issue. If you haven’t heard from Barclays yet, it is time to get in touch.
The outage not only affected payments between Barclays accounts but also between Barclays and other banks and even slowed payments in and out of savings accounts.
Several savings banks including Secure Trust, Charter Savings and Chetwood had notices on their websites during the outage saying that it may result in delays in processing deposits to and withdrawals from savings accounts.
Did these delays mean you missed a credit card payment to another bank because your money did not turn up in your account in time?
Or were you transferring a large sum to your savings accounts on which you lost interest while it sat around in your current account?
A spokesman from Barclays told me yesterday: ‘Anyone impacted by our technical issue, including savers with other banks who were affected, should get in touch with us directly and we’ll ensure they’re not left out of pocket.’
As with all bank outages, you should provide Barclays with details of any costs you had to pay – such as late payment fees or loss of interest on your savings. It may also be worth mentioning any distress it caused you, in case the bank compensates you further for this.
If you feel you have not been treated fairly or are out of pocket, you can make a formal complaint to the bank. If you are unhappy with the outcome, move on to the Financial Ombudsman.
You can contact Barclays by telephone on 0345 600 2323 or through its app or website. To contact the Financial Ombudsman, go to financial-ombudsman.org.uk.
