Woman, 91, loses account and pension after Barclays declares her dead

theguardian.com:

An elderly widow was cut off from her money for three months and lost her phone line and energy supply when a banking error by Barclays marked her as deceased.

Ninety-one-year-old Marjorie Roper* discovered that her pension and benefits payments had been stopped and her direct debits cancelled after a Barclays agent recorded that she had died and closed her account.

The nightmare began in November when Roper informed Barclays that her husband had died. She asked for his name to be removed from their joint account and replaced with that of her daughter, Mary*, who has third-party access to her account. Instead, she was marked as deceased and the account was closed. Her pension and benefit payments were returned to the Department for Work and Pensions and her direct debits were stopped.

She discovered the mistake when she returned from a family Christmas to find her phone line and energy supply had been cut off and a sheaf of letters from companies and the council demanding payment.

Roper made two trips to her nearest Barclays branch and was told on both occasions by staff that she was recorded as dead. The bank refused to discuss the case with her daughter because her third-party authority had been revoked when the account was closed.

“The bank has blocked my mother’s income and it cut off her only means of contacting the outside world,” Mary Roper said. “For the last month she’s been buying food with the £250 she had left in cash and is terrified she’ll run out. To date Barclays has not responded to our demands they reinstate and claim her backdated pension payments.”

The account was eventually reopened and her payments restored and backdated after the Guardian intervened. Her phone line and energy supply had already been