UK households and businesses are hoarding according to the banking industry.
The Bank of England reporting record increases in the amount of money held in bank accounts.
In fact, Sterling money holdings by private sector companies and households rose by £57.4bn in March, the biggest increase on record.
In the previous six months it went up by only £9bn
But is that because the bloody banks are making it so difficult for the ordinary man or woman on the street to get hold of his or her dosh in this time of face masks, lock-down and corona-virus fear.
A few days we reported on one couple stranded by the virus in Slovakia who were band from their internet banking because they were asked ONE question about the opening of their account 20 years ago.
They gave the wrong answer!
BONG – HSBC KO’d them and left then without money to buy food or pay their rent!
We also reported on a couple stranded in Portugal – locked out of their account by Santander…
Now we have been sent the tragic story of an elderly lady from Manchester, whose husband died recently. Most of their money was in his name and this, in her own words, is her story about trying to get it transferred. She has asked to remain anonymous…
She writes:
Here’s the scenario.
Your other half dies and it hits you hard. Harder than you would ever have believed. It’s not just one chair less at the table – it’s life as you knew it completely changed. Especially if you are alone, family in other parts of the world and you are too old to simply make a new life. But you try; you join groups and for a long time sit as isolated as if you were in your own four walls.
Bleakly non-functional.
Then, just a few weeks later a pandemic contorts your every move. You are self-isolated, there is lock down through most of the world. The telephone and social media is your new reality. A new kind of fear. Now you know what ‘isolation’ can do to the way you think and function. It is hard to say whether your physical or your mental health has been hardest hit. And you have all the time in the world to dwell upon it.
But, Hey, as friends said when your loved one passed away: “If he left a Will you won’t have any trouble with getting your assets sorted.” He left a Will – and they said it in good faith.
This is where the banks, the building societies, the Post Office, The Bank of England take over what you now call ‘life’.
Even without a pandemic, you would have been grief stricken and lost. But still there is a force which is ready, willing and able to turn hopelessness into despair.
It starts with the forms for Probate, including a form regarding Inheritance Tax. You’ve worked, you and the spouse since you were fourteen – and managed to save. The fortunate ones who studied and got careers. But not in the Inheritance Tax class.
So you need help with these forms in the weeks following the death. You find out just how much solicitors charge to do the job and, putting all papers aside, you think you will get to it later.
When you do eventually start trying you realize that you have spread your savings out, as suggested by the government following the collapse of banks throughout the world in 2008.
After a lot of trying to make an ageing and distracted brain come to terms with the challenges, you send off the forms. And after two or three months find that you must have added and subtracted and driven yourself mad and come up with acceptable results. You now have Grant of Probate.
This is where the real battle starts.
The battle to get the money which is still in the spouse’s name to be finally accepted as now yours. The money you both saved which he left in a clear and simple Will is still not yours. Well it IS actually by every moral standard ever discussed.
But not to the Banks.
It’s not yours, and it’s not his – the institutions are still using it, virtually owning it.
When you approach each one the reaction is surprisingly similar. They will send you a series of forms which you will attempt to sort out and send back. Together with the Grant of Probate, The Death Certificate, plus two ways of identifying yourself as the person you say you are (a passport, a driving licence etcetera, etcetera).
Oh, yes and a ‘covering letter’. If you manage to get these various documents into the correct envelopes and someone to post them for you in the middle of a pandemic you might think that you have reached the conclusion.
You are then awaiting the Forms and Documents which will be sent back to you after they receive the Forms and Documents. These forms will be to ascertain where you wish the monies to be settled (hopefully, all being well, in your name).
Meanwhile your phone bill has become astronomical as you have spent on average an hour and a half speaking to sympathetic but immovable telephone representatives at every juncture.
The simple end to this is still far away, some eight months after the spouse’s death.
May I say, to end this diatribe, that if I sound frustrated it is because I am.
Cannot the hierarchy, the management of all these self-righteous, robotic institutions see that at the end of their ‘rules and regulations’, their implacable demands there sits some bereaved, elderly, despairing human being.
Name supplied.
PUT YOUR MONEY WHERE YOUR MOUTH IS – LYRICS
Oasis
Put yer money where yer mouth is
Yer mamma says that you was real
Put yer money where yer mouth is
Yer mamma says that you was real
Ready or not, come what may
The bets are going down for judgement day
So put yer money in yer mouth
And your hands right upon the wheel
Put yer money where yer mouth is
Yer pappa says that you was real
Put yer money where yer mouth is
Yer pappa says that you was real
Ready or not, and come what may
You betcha going down on judgement day
So put yer money in yer mouth
And yer hands right upon the wheel
TAGS: Banks, corona virus, Covid 19, question, bankers, cash, accounts, profits, UK, HSBC, Santander, probate, bereavement, death, wills
As a former banker and financial advisor I know the technology has moved on. Right now I have had to relearn using online banking. If you give a wrong security question you as I did can ring there automated service and get an advisor. Fine for getting around the online hurdle for our benefit. If you get one wrong pass word it lets you have three tries before it blocks you for obvious reason of security. So I rang the number and waited for advisor as a human. This was resolved by getting a pen and paper . Done. I had put what they said accordingly . As to Private will conditions they serve to protect fraudsters. All extra money must be dealt with by a lawyer as to winding up an estate proceedings of pensions or assets. I went through this three times. No way can any lawyer be at your door or transfer money without proof of funds being legal and being unfettered by a second charge on a property.
Hi Pauline, in principle what you say is absolutely right and it all should work that way … but we weren’t treated that way. It was a stonewall of refusal to help, no suggestion of ways around the problem, except to go in to our branch 2,000 miles away and we were in lockdown!