Lloyds Bank is holding on to our urgently needed £5,500

Last November, Lloyds Bank informed me, in my role as treasurer of my parish church, that the church account was to be closed and that I should open a new business account instead. This can only be done online, but a fault with their system prevented me – and local branch staff – from doing so.

At the branch staff’s suggestion, I opened the new account with a different bank in early March. Since then, I’ve been trying in vain to get Lloyds to transfer the balance from the closed account.

I’ve been repeatedly told to visit my local branch and repeatedly told that the money would arrive within weeks. At one point I was told that the bank had lost my identity verification documents and so had put the case at the bottom of the pile.

We are owed nearly £5,500, which, for a congregation of 10 in a village of 60 houses, is a significant sum. We have had to borrow from parishioners to pay for essential repairs and to settle the electricity bill.

CI, Yorkshire

The apparent indifference of Lloyds is outrageous. As was its energy spurt when it realised public exposure was pending.

As soon as I questioned its inertia, it winged off a mea culpa acknowledging poor and inconsistent communications and offering £400 in goodwill, plus £96 in lost interest.

What the letter from the executive complaints manager did not mention was the still-missing funds.

So back I had to go to Lloyds, and off went another letter from the bank apologising for the omission.

The money was transferred more than four months after the account was closed.

A Lloyds spokesperson said: “We’re sorry the customer had such a difficult experience. We should have handled things better.”

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