Passbook Bank Accounts Don't Get Done Get Dom

I've been fighting your consumer battles for years now, but the same old problems just keep flooding in.

And it's all the usual suspects.

Poor customer service, faulty goods and hidden small print.

No wonder some of you are fed up with the way you're being treated.

Sometimes, there is the hassle of having to go through the channels of I'm leaving,

to then a few days later getting a call back and then they can start treating you like a customer.

It's something quite easy to get right. A lot of places don't get it right.

It's just about a bit of attention really.

I couldn't agree more.

Things need to change and we're on a mission to get companies to treat us better.

I'll be taking on your cases

and fighting your fight with the big companies.

I think this system has let them down and that might be

just the chink in the armour I need to try and get this sorted.

And I'll be showing you how to shop smart and stay one step ahead.

As you said, you need to keep it in here and you are right.

-So remember, don't get done.

-Get Dom.

On today's show, how one man's life just didn't add up

when he discovered his savings account had disappeared.

I don't understand why £8,000 has gone just like that.

And one woman's stroke of luck after her house went up in flames.

I don't understand. How can my house be on fire?

And roving reporter Rani Price hits the streets

to find out your rights when shopping in the sales.

We all know saving money is undoubtedly a very sensible thing

to do because it gives us financial stability and peace of mind.

We trust our banks and building societies to look after our savings.

But what would you do if you went down to withdraw your funds

and all of a sudden, you realised your savings were no longer there?

Which is exactly what happened to 88-year-old Valentine Brown,

who opened a savings account at Abbey National with £8,000,

to find out 10 years later it had disappeared.

Valentine worked hard all his life

to save enough money for his retirement.

I'm a saver in a sense, yes.

I look after my money and I've been looking after it for my retirement.

That is what it was all about.

But when I came back from the forces, that was in 1947,

I had to find work because there was no office available then

and I got myself a job in the bank.

As I didn't have the grades, I started off as a messenger

and I worked my way through the system.

I done 43 years with the bank. Retired from there.

And since then, I've carried on and looked after my savings.

In 1997, Valentine opened a passbook account with the Abbey National

and deposited £8,000.

I opened my account with Abbey National, which I had

surplus from my account in the bank, which I put in there as savings.

This is what I was doing to accumulate money for when I retired.

That was the whole idea and for my travelling.

And one place close to Valentine's heart is Greece

because this is where he met his late wife, Dimitra.

It was love at first sight. We decided to get married.

I had to go and see all her family. Seven brothers and sisters.

I was made so welcome. I had a family there.

I thought I was one of the family.

From then on, they have been a very close-knit family.

Sadly, his wife fell ill 14 years ago and Valentine

dedicated his time caring for her and forgot about the account.

It wasn't until his son was helping him

go through his finances that they found the passbook associated

with Valentine's Abbey National savings account.

After Mum died, there were three or four years of grieving, if you like.

Then finally it came to light that we needed to sort things out.

We looked through all the paperwork and various things

and this book reared its ugly head, if you like.

Abbey National is not around any longer.

In 2004, it was acquired by Santander.

Since Santander took over the account, we've heard absolutely nothing.

No paperwork. No accounts. No statements. Absolutely nothing.

Valentine and Les headed off to a local branch of the bank

to check the account, only to hear some rather worrying words.

They've got no knowledge of this whatsoever.

Leave it with us, we'll deal with it and get back to you.

No knowledge? That doesn't sound right.

So Valentine and Les did what anyone would do

and wrote a letter of complaint.

Two weeks passed and no reply, so they wrote again.

Two weeks later, they received a letter from Santander

explaining they had never received his earlier

correspondence and sent him a £25 cheque for the inconvenience.

I think they thought that when the £25 came through,

that was going to be a goodwill gesture and he was going to say,

"Thank you very much and bye-bye. Case closed."

But I don't think so.

And I agree.

Santander maintained they had no record of Valentine's account

after February 2001 and said the evidence indicates

he must have closed it and withdrawn the money.

But Valentine insists he didn't do this.

Time for me to meet him and his son, Les.

-Morning. Are you Valentine?

-Hello, Dominic. Pleased to meet you.

-Very pleased to see you as well.

And I start off by asking what kind of battle it's been so far,

trying to find Valentine's account.

I started writing letters to various people to find out what I could do and couldn't do.

It went to the Financial Ombudsman, it went to the MP.

I'm a bit disappointed that you had to go down all those avenues and nobody's been able to help you.

So what do you think has happened? You tell me.

I can only assume that it's gone in the system when it was Abbey,

it's been transferred from Abbey to Santander and computers being what they are,

as far as I can see, it's probably got lost in the system

and therefore there is no reference to it at all, so it's gone.

This is just a theory and Santander say the account was closed.

Santander have told us we must have drawn this out some time or other.

I've got no recollection of having that amount of money coming out

so I cannot understand what they are accusing me of.

The point is that I've wanted to take £8,000 out,

I'm sure it would be in my book but there is no record of it at all in there.

That's really it.

They can't find any tangible evidence that we've taken it out or haven't, as the case may be.

But how adamant are you that dad hasn't withdrawn this money?

Very adamant because we checked all his bank accounts to see what is in there.

£8,000 would stick out like a sore thumb.

Apart from the fact, what would he want £8,000 for?

Once we moved here, I took over the whole house.

If it's an old account like that, presumably you had a paying-in book.

-Have you got the book handy?

-Yes, I can give you the book.

-There we are. That is the actual book.

-OK.

Santander have had that book. They've had copies of it.

The Financial Ombudsman sent it to them.

They've dealt with it and still nothing has come up.

They just say that it doesn't exist.

I mean, you'd think they would check something to say,

"No. You've done this. There's the proof."

But they've come back with absolutely nothing,

just that the chances are we have probably taken the money out. How? I don't know.

Have you received interest statements or tax certificates relating to this account?

-I would say no.

-No, not to my knowledge.

-We've never had anything.

There are an awful lot of problems with trying to sort this one out.

It's your word against theirs at the moment.

You know that old cliche about David and Goliath?

Never more has it been truer. You really are in the David camp, aren't you?

-They are so big.

-Right. I think what I need to do at this point,

you've told me everything you can, I need to get on to Santander

and see how they are going to behave with this sort of problem.

-I'm going to get to the bottom of this, one way or the other. I'll speak you very soon.

-Thank you.

Les and Valentine are adamant this money wasn't withdrawn from this account

but it was put in there 15 years ago and Abbey National are no longer there.

Valentine and Les feel they have nowhere else to turn

and they are desperate to get his money back

so he can continue to visit his family in Greece.

I've got a feeling I'm going to have my work cut out for me on this one so I'd better get cracking.

Santander, here I come.

The Santander group, which Santander UK is part of,

is one of the world's biggest banks.

Now, they may sit proudly near the top of the pile in size

and profit but when it comes to overall customer satisfaction,

they are at the bottom of the heap.

According to a Which? report from September 2012,

Santander was the worst performer for customer satisfaction

out of a total of 30 British banks.

Well, I hope that's not what I experience when I speak to them.

Time to get on the phone.

Now, don't forget, they told Valentine they believe

he withdrew his money and I want to know when, where and how.

ANSWERING MACHINE: Thanks for calling Santander.

For bank and savings accounts, press one.

Credit cards, press two.

Hello. My name is Dominic Littlewood.

I'm calling from the BBC about a query with a customer's account.

'The gentleman, who doesn't want his voice to be used, asked if I'm named on the account.'

I have a letter of authority to speak on their behalf.

'I'm then asked for the account details.'

You can. It was originally an Abbey National one so I don't know if you'd still have that.

'The man says there is no information coming up

'and requests some more details about the customer,

'including full name and date of birth.

'But even after inputting this, no account appears.

'He goes on to say he doesn't think he can be of any more help

'so will transfer me to another department.'

Interesting. I've just found out that Santander have a specialist complaints department.

I've got their number and I'm being put through now.

'So I bring this specialist team up to speed.'

Thank you. They won't deal with me. They are getting me the number of someone who will.

'She then explained she is putting me through to Helen, the senior social manager.'

We have a gentleman who's got the problem with originally

Abbey National and now Santander.

I would like to give you all the details of that.

We do have a letter of authority to speak on his behalf which I will get over to you once I get some details.

'I want to know how they can be sure Valentine withdrew the £8,000

'and I refer to the financial ombudsman's report on the case, which found in favour of Santander,

'but had a few things to say about their evidence.'

"The evidence is incomplete, inconclusive or contradictory as some of it is here.

"I reach my decision on the balance of probabilities."

It's not conclusive, but that is what they have done.

They have reached a decision on the balance of probability.

'I agree to forward all the paperwork in an e-mail.

'She says her team will have a look at it and get back to me.'

Bye-bye.

'Well, it's not a bad start.

'As time is money, I get straight on the case

'and e-mail Helen the list of my questions,

'including what evidence Santander can provide to prove that

'Valentine's savings have been withdrawn and if the money was taken

'out using identification rather than Valentine's paying-in book.

'Was a paper record kept?

'Let's wait and see what they have to say about that.

'As I dig deeper, a financial expert tells me

'a few home truths about the world of banking.'

Right now, the customer is guilty until proven innocent.

I'm Rani Price and there's nothing I like better than helping you, the buying public,

through the minefield of regulations to make sure you stay savvy shoppers.

Now, consumer law can be very confusing.

You've got your Sale of Goods Act, Distance Selling,

Right to Return and it doesn't stop there.

But knowing just a few of these laws can not only save you money

but a lot of hassle as well.

Do you know what this is?

'Today, I'm out on the streets armed with questions to put to you, the buying public,

'to find out if you know your consumer rights from your consumer wrongs.'

I love shopping in the sales.

There is a chance you can find a real knockout bargain.

But if you buy something in a sale, are your rights the same as normal?

Let's see what you think.

'So I'm going to conduct a little quiz with sales shoppers to find out

'if they fully understand their rights.'

-Are you a sale shopper?

-Yes.

-Are you a wise sale shopper?

-I try to be.

Do you think you are a wise man?

A wise shopper?

If I'm buying something brand-new, I'm aware that providing you have

a proof of purchase, you can take it back.

What about sales? Is it the same or is it different?

You're good at buying stuff in sales but do you know your rights, though?

-No.

-No?

-Not my rights.

'I'm sensing our shoppers aren't that consumer confident.

'Let's dig a little deeper.'

So the scenario is, a shop advertises everything half price.

You spot a TV you've had your eye on for ages for £500,

so you expect to buy it for £250.

But when you get to the till, they say it's not in the sale.

Can the shop legally do this?

Normally, when I go into a shop and they say everything is half-price, then it has to be. Am I wrong?

Does it say everything is 50% off?

-Outside, it says everything is 50% off.

-Then I suppose they can't.

Can they do this?

I wouldn't have thought they can but they probably do.

Can you demand that it should be in the sale because of the sign outside?

I would definitely ask if this item was in the sale

and when they told me no, it's not, I'd be very annoyed.

Here to put us on the right track is Rob Vale from Trading Standards.

If a trader advertises everything is half-price, then everything

has to be half-price with no exceptions.

If they try to exclude items, then this can be misleading,

which could be an offence under the consumer protection regulations.

So it needs to be reported to Trading Standards.

Can you force them, though, to sell it to you for the sale price?

I suppose it depends how long you are willing to stand and argue.

No. Absolutely not.

If you report this to Trading Standards, they will almost certainly investigate it

because it is a criminal offence.

However, you can't as a consumer insist that the trader sells you this item at the lower price.

The goods are known as an invitation to treat

and they can refuse to sell any item you if they so wish.

60% off. The shop is closing down. Today.

Three weeks later, your mate comes around and says,

"Look what I've just bought! The shop is closing down today. 60% off! Get yourself down there."

You say, "I did do that three weeks ago. I got it for 60% off when it was closing down that day."

In fact, the shop has been closing down for about two years. Can they do that?

I wouldn't have thought so. I'd be pretty angry.

Advertising a closing down sale

when you are not closing down is now a banned practice.

It's against the law under the consumer protection regulations.

So if you see this happening, you must report it to Trading Standards.

For his birthday he wants a good stereo.

You've decided you're going to buy him one because it's in the sale.

You get it for him, you bring it home,

he plugs it in and it just buzzes.

You've bought it in the sale. Can you take it back?

You can take it back but you won't be able to get your full money back.

Can you exchange for the same product or something like that?

Yes, of course I should return.

Yes.

It should still do the job it's supposed to do.

-Can they do this to you?

-No.

-But it says it's a sale item.

-And?

-You think? Are you sure?

-Yes.

-You're right.

-I know!

You can return sale items if there is a fault but not if you've

changed your mind, which applies to any item that you might buy.

But if the sale item is a second

or if the fault is brought to your attention at the time of purchase,

you won't be able to reject the goods under those circumstances.

So just because you've bagged yourself a bargain,

it doesn't mean you have to lose your rights.

I've been answering a cry for help from Valentine Brown

and his son, Les, who are desperate to find £8,000 that has just

vanished from Valentine's Santander savings account.

I feel very upset about this

because they don't seem to be very helpful on this subject.

This is something I really feel I need.

You write letters to them and you get answers

which really don't relate to what you're asking them for.

Santander has looked into the matter and believe Valentine

probably withdrew the money and closed the account.

Their evidence to back this up are tax records which show that

no tax was paid on any interest and so the account must have been closed.

However, Valentine is adamant that he's never taken the money out

and still has the passbook, which clearly shows the £8,000 deposit

and nothing else.

Santander have been pretty quiet since my first call nine days ago.

They've e-mailed me once just to say they are looking into the case

and will get back to me shortly.

But the longer we wait, the more money Valentine is potentially losing.

So I'm going to get back on the blower to them.

This time, I just want to know why they don't have a record,

any kind of record, of Valentine closing his account.

Your department which looks at accounts closed in the past

were unable to locate any details on the savings account in question.

Obviously, they have a cut-off point where they don't go any further.

Helen, the senior social media manager at Santander,

tells me that records for closed accounts are kept for six years.

To be fair, six years' worth of records is all that

banks are legally required to keep

but the lack of paper evidence makes life a little trickier for me.

I genuinely think this account is lying there dormant somewhere and he's entitled to it.

Bye-bye.

This is proving a very tough nut to crack but I'm not giving up yet

and go back to trawling through the paperwork.

I'm hoping to get Valentine to do exactly the same.

I want him to double check there is definitely no other records of his

money being withdrawn, transferred or the account being closed.

Believe me, Valentine has already done this probably 100 times.

I would if eight grand was at stake.

But it's worth one more look just in case one slip of paper,

one letter, could put this to bed once and for all.

Even after one last desperate dig behind the sofa, nothing.

Back over to you, Santander, and a few days later I receive an e-mail from

Helen at Santander in response to my list of questions about evidence.

They say as there was no interest accrued on the account since 2001

and no movements, this indicates that the account was closed.

Indicates? You see, that's a bit vague to me.

I want hard evidence about that account closing down.

Surely, they should have a firm record of a closure.

Santander UK then go on to say accounts can be closed

without the passbook if sufficient ID is provided.

So I waste no time in replying,

asking for evidence into how Valentine's account was closed.

It's a tough one, this, but worryingly,

not an unusual one, as I've discovered.

Meet Avril Mann.

She's in charge of fundraising at her local church

and in 1993 she opened a bank account at Abbey National

and what follows sounds remarkably similar to Valentine's experience.

Money was going in up until 2001. There was £1,762.38.

10 years later, Avril went to a branch of Santander to get

the passbook updated and got a surprise response.

The cashier at Santander could find no record whatsoever of the account.

I just thought, there must be a mistake with their computer.

Not that the money had gone.

Avril believed her passbook would be all the proof needed to show

she had not taken the money out, but she couldn't have been more wrong.

The passbook hadn't been closed.

We had no date of closure so therefore,

they must have made a mistake on their records.

I understand that passbooks are not seen as evidence that money

is in the account but this is unfair because the passbook

is the only evidence you've got that the money's in the account.

Avril contacted the Financial Ombudsman service to complain

but had a similar response to Valentine.

The Financial Ombudsman said in their final letter that

I must have drawn the money out and forgotten all about it.

They were going to support Santander and I had no claim on the money.

I came to the point where I just didn't know where to go next.

I knew I hadn't drawn the money out, I knew it was in the account,

but I really couldn't see how I was going to get that money back for the church.

And 81-year-old John Louis has been battling with Santander

for the past year trying to get £1,516 back from his savings account

that the bank say is now closed.

They feel it was closed because they paid three pounds interest on it

with the Inland Revenue in 1998.

And therefore, they figured as there was no further interest

paid next year, that the account was closed.

Where is the proof that it's closed?

Exactly. Where have we heard that one before?

It doesn't sound good for John.

So that's two more cases to put to Santander.

But according to some,

this is actually a growing problem within the banking sector.

This is an issue that is happening more and more often.

It is quite alarming.

I would expect to hear about this once in a lifetime,

not on a regular basis.

Money doesn't move in this country without there being some backup

and some paper trail.

And she believes the law should be changed to extend

the amount of years that banks have to keep account records.

I think it's ridiculous to think that they only keep records for six years.

I know that when I had my own company,

I still have the records of clients

because we are dealing with long-term financial planning

and a client may come back and question something at any point.

There are so many ways to save client data securely

and without taking up too much space.

Well, that is certainly food for thought.

I e-mail details of my other two missing money cases over to Santander.

And at almost exactly the same time,

I get an e-mail back from them.

They are responding to an e-mail I sent them, asking for hard

evidence that Valentine's record have been destroyed.

She tells me, Santander are not obliged to retain

records for more than six years after an account has been closed.

And then in response to my simple question

of how Valentine's account could have been closed,

they give me a link to their website where I can find ID requirements.

What ID requirements? I mean, how is that going to help?

All I'm asking for is something that categorically proves

Valentine closed that account down.

The thing that really frustrates me here is that surely

in the modern world of computer systems,

situations like Valentine's, Avril's and John's just shouldn't happen.

There must be a database that can store customer account details

for longer than the mandatory six years.

Ralph Silva, a former investment banker and independent banking expert,

is hopefully going to shed some light on this.

To become a banker in the United Kingdom, you have to

subscribe to a series of rules and one of the more significant rules

is that there has to be a master database.

That master database is what HMRC looks at, what everybody looks at.

After seven years, however,

the information can fall off of that principal database.

As a result, it's really "he said, she said".

In future, we should see that database keep an extended amount of information,

maybe for 20 years, maybe for a person's life.

But right now, it is only required from six to seven years.

When Valentine took his case to the Financial Ombudsman Service,

they sided with the bank. Why?

The banks records are trusted over your own records for one very simple reason.

The banks have a licence to operate a bank

and as a result they have to succumb to certain rules

and one of the rules is that they are fit and proper people to run a bank.

In other words, they need to be trusted in order to have a banking licence.

Therefore, the benefit of the doubt is often given to them.

It's absolutely not fair that the bank's records are always supreme,

simply because it's often easier for the bank just to say no.

It saves them money, they don't have to do a lot of effort.

So if their default answer is always no, that's not fair.

We should make sure that they always look into these things and give

the benefit of the doubt to the human being that is actually doing banking.

But right now, that's not the way the law is set up.

So what else could be done to stop this happening in the future?

Just by the very nature of passbooks,

the fact that you have to go in and keep them updated,

it means they will always be almost instantaneously inaccurate.

Why? Because the minute you walk out of the bank, you've already made

some money on interest, which is not reflected in your passbook.

So for the next generation, we should just eliminate them altogether.

There are some surprising truths to be told here.

There's a conflict when the record and the database of the bank

and the records that you hold in your passbook are different because

the law really states that the bank's records are supposed to be accurate.

In most cases, the banks make these things right.

Ultimately, the customer should be assumed innocent until proven guilty.

Right now, the customer is guilty until proven innocent.

That's the fundamental change that regulations have to ensure happens.

And when I meet up with Valentine again,

I deliver more unpleasant surprises.

I, like you, thought your money was safe. It's not.

Our inbox is overflowing with your e-mails

but unfortunately we can't answer every cry for help.

So that's why we love nothing more than hearing your tales of how

you lot have taken on the big companies yourselves and won.

Hard-working single man Sam Brittan from Suffolk moved into her

two-bedroom semi-detached house in 2005.

The property is part owned by a regional Housing Association.

It was in a real state.

It was a good couple of years before everything had got finished.

Once I'd sort of turned it around, it was a lovely home.

Sam's father, Wayne, a retired policeman,

helped his daughter get it up to scratch.

We had it re-plastered, re-bordered, the ceilings done.

Sam spent over £2,000 refurbishing the property

but felt it was worth it as she and her 14-year-old son, Connor,

could now start to enjoy living in their new home.

We've got great neighbours. We've got a really friendly close.

You know, and Connor loves it.

Sam's house had buildings insurance through the housing association

and when she moved in she'd also been given an electrical safety certificate

so she felt her and her son could sleep easy.

However, she didn't take out contents insurance as it was too expensive.

She just hoped for the best.

We are not ashamed to say that she didn't have any contents insurance.

Sam will say to me, what did I need contents insurance for?

I didn't have jewellery, I didn't have laptops or computers.

The only thing I had of value was my television.

But six years later, early in the morning on 17 December 2011,

Wayne was rudely awoken.

At 3:45am in the morning, it's got to be bad news.

Sam's house was on fire. I couldn't believe it.

So of course, I got out of bed

and shoved some stuff on and went around there.

I couldn't take it all in. My house was on fire. I don't understand.

How can my house be on fire?

Thankfully, Connor had been staying at his dad's

and Sam had fallen asleep downstairs so she could make a quick exit.

So I've gone out of here through into the hallway,

obviously half asleep, and upstairs. I could hear this roaring.

The fire started in the consumer unit which was situated up here,

which supplied the night storage heaters.

Obviously, that caught fire.

Bits of that were dropping on the floor, which then started another fire on the floor.

Fires don't start in consumer units for no reason. There was a reason.

Why did it catch on fire? I had been here six years. Why?

Sam hoped that the housing association's insurance company would determine the reason.

The cause of the fire was a loose screw in the consumer unit.

This could have occurred at any time.

-They offered £1,000.

-£1,000 is, you know, laughable.

Sam and Wayne felt the finger of blame was firmly pointed

towards the housing association as it was their consumer unit

that appeared to have caused the fire.

Having invested so much time and money into the property,

they decided to go back to the insurance company to ask for

more compensation to replace Sam's contents that were lost in the fire.

They offered £3,500. I thought, yes, great.

She'd been out of the house for eight months.

She wanted to get back into her routine again

and the boy wanted to get home. So she accepted it.

After living with her mum and dad for so long, Sam now had

the money to rebuild her life and replace the contents of her home.

But it wasn't the end of the story for her as she took her

complaint to the Housing Ombudsman.

She felt that the housing association were at fault

and the un-serviced consumer unit was to blame.

The ombudsman ruled in favour of the housing association

as they have done nothing wrong.

They carried out the safety checks before Sam moved in

and they are not required by law to carry out any more.

We asked the housing association to comment on Sam's case and they have said:

The housing association are keen to point out that whilst they did offer

compensation, this should not be taken as an admission of liability.

And they also say they:

It feels great to be back home, starting to get the routine again.

Slowly starting.

Upstairs is almost done.

Down here, I've still got finishing touches to do.

So yes, it's good to be back home.

Sam was a lucky lass receiving a goodwill gesture

as she didn't have her own insurance.

The housing association had done nothing wrong

but it just goes to show, if you don't ask, you don't get.

Following a chance discovery of £8,000 sitting in an old

savings account, Valentine Brown and his son, Les,

went along to his branch of Santander to withdraw the money,

only to be told by the bank that the account had been closed.

Valentine is adamant he never did this

and is equally certain he never withdrew the money.

Santander say he did but can't say when, where or how.

What's happened to this money in my account?

We are getting very annoyed, Les and I.

We are getting nowhere with it.

You don't expect to lose money in a bank.

You expect them to be the pillars of society, if you like.

Having all of the appropriate information on computers, as they say they do.

It makes you very angry.

I'm determined to help Valentine get to the bottom of this

and I've just received an e-mail from Helen at Santander.

Could this be good news?

She starts by saying that in the case of Avril Mann,

who claims £1,762 has just disappeared from her account,

the FOS has already investigated and sided with Santander.

We already knew this and they are obviously not going to dig any deeper.

As for John Louis and his fight with the bank to find £1,516,

his case is currently being investigated.

Finally, for Valentine Brown.

As Santander believe his account was closed more than six years ago,

they don't have any record of the withdrawal.

The banks have done what the law requires

but it seems that's all they will do despite the fact that all

three of these account holders insist

they never withdrew any money or closed their accounts.

It may look all doom and gloom

but financial adviser Sarah Bowles has a tale to tell

about a battle she fought with a different high-street

bank and it can give us all some hope.

Sarah had an 83-year-old client who had a savings account

with £97,000 in it.

A large chunk of her life savings.

One day, the elderly lady discovered the account had disappeared

and after contacting the bank, they had told her the account had been closed.

The bank was so categoric.

The bank told her children that she had shut the account and they

began to question whether she was in control of her faculties or not.

Sarah got on the phone to the bank, hoping to sort the matter out

quite quickly between professionals.

Not really getting very far with my initial plan,

I then had to arrange for my client to go into the offices

and then when we were both sitting in the bank,

this was the only way they'd agree to talk to me at all,

they still refused to give us any information.

Sarah was shocked at how the bank was treating her client.

She was certainly being accused of lying

and of trying to get money out of the bank that they didn't owe her.

Undeterred by the bank's aggressive manner,

Sarah arranged to go back and try and get some concrete answers.

When I went back, I still got no cooperation

until I threatened to call the police.

It was only after she had staged her sit-in that there was a turn

of events and within a few hours, the account was miraculously found.

They said it had been an error in the merger

and they said it was an IT error of copying data over

and that is how the account had got lost.

Thankfully, a happy ending to this story

but it could have finished very differently.

I have to say, I do not believe for a minute that this lady would have

got her money back unless someone else was involved in helping her.

Since that one battle, Sarah has been inundated with

pleas for help by people in the same situation.

So many, that she's had to stop taking on any more cases.

I have to say though it does show that just sheer perseverance can pay.

But will it for Valentine Brown and his fight with Santander?

So far, it's not looking good.

What is clear from these stories is that it might be time for banks

and other financial institutions to take a look at how long

they keep customer records.

Is six years really long enough in today's computerised world?

And if not, should regulations be changed?

The better record-keeping you have, the more likely

you are to keep hold of your accounts.

A trusted friend or family member who can help you verify

the information could be helpful.

Or just a spreadsheet of your own,

but with everything documented with start dates, end dates,

account numbers, all logged.

And what do they think the banks can do?

I think banks can do a few things.

They should take the moral high ground. It is not a lot of money.

They should make these situations right.

These are people who have earned the right to have the benefit of the doubt and they didn't have that.

And also they have to put in processes where any other situation

like this is looked at in a more sensitive way.

They should take the technology out of it and put human beings talking to human beings.

I've passed all three cases over to the Financial Services Authority,

who are now looking into them.

The FSA say:

Santander say they've adhered to all necessary regulations.

So for now, this is the end of the road for Valentine and Les.

-Valentine, how are you? Are you all right?

-Pleased to see you.

-Good to see you again, and you, Les.

-Coming in for a cuppa?

-I hope so.

You haven't got a jammy dodger, have you?

Being your birthday in a few days' time, I wish I had some better news.

I'm not here now with your money.

I haven't got a cheque for you and I haven't resolved the problem.

But when you think about it,

how many other people have you approached now to try and get this sorted out?

-You've been just about every way, haven't you?

-Yes.

-Yes.

I believe I've probably pushed this further than most of the other people.

What I have done is highlighted a massive problem.

Last year alone, there were 85 complaints about people,

exactly the same as you, with Santander.

Only four of them got their money back.

That means there are 81 people out there, as well as you, who are saying, where's my money?

That's just the people who have bothered to complain.

They are probably an awful lot of people who have gone,

"It's only 400 quid - whatever it might be - you must have withdrawn it, granddad."

I think we're on the verge of a massive problem here.

When you think of a big firm that's involved with all

the money from the public and they lose some, it doesn't make sense.

-I look back years ago and banking was reliable.

-Yes.

With computers today, I don't know, it just doesn't seem to be

helping with the banking side of it that was done years ago.

One of the big problems I've had with Santander is,

I went back to them time and time and time again.

It was driving me bonkers.

I said to them, supply me proof that Valentine withdrew that money.

They couldn't. At all.

This is Santander's reason

why they say they say you have drawn the money out.

It's because in 2001 they stopped paying interest on that account to HMRC.

Not good enough as far as I'm concerned.

They said they only have to keep their paperwork for a certain amount of time.

We are in a modern-day society now.

10, 20, 30 years ago, before we had computers,

they had to keep warehouses full of paperwork and boxes and everything.

Nowadays, it's all on chips. You can store the contents of the British library on one computer.

So to me, it's not an argument.

I think it's time these financial institutions had a big shake-up

and say OK, we need to keep concrete proof for a much longer period.

I've got to be honest, what you and Les brought to the table here has opened my eyes.

I didn't realise that this existed.

I, like you, thought your money was safe. It's not.

What we're doing now is scratching the surface and we are about to

open up a great big wound for the banks and building societies.

I appreciate it and I really hope, as you say, this is going to

start something up and hopefully a few more complaints will come in.

Sorry the news is not better.

But hopefully, we're going to get some sort of good news in the near future.

Keep us informed because we'd like to report on it.

I'm going to keep my fingers crossed

but I think your money will come back one day.

We wrote to Santander and they said:

I'm very pleased with the work that Dom has done.

I think we've done as much as we can ourselves

and we're fighting a giant, that's the trouble.

Obviously, it proves that we aren't fiddling

and obviously a lot of people have come forward

so it proves there is something very wrong with Santander.

Now, I may not have the good news I really wanted to give Valentine today

but I think that's only a matter of time.

In the meantime, I want to point something out to you.

If you or anyone you know has got one of these passbooks,

get down to the building society or bank and just double-check your money is there.

If it's not, get on the phone to the Financial Ombudsman Service.

In the meantime, I'm going to give this back to Valentine

because I think good news will be coming his way.

Just not today, that's all. Stick the kettle on, Valentine.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd