A charity hub which supports some of the most vulnerable communities in Wirral was unable to pay staff or bills after their Barclays account went "missing".
The Carrbridge Centre in Woodchurch is a charity will the sole aim of helping people in the area to improve their quality of life. The dedicated team of paid staff and volunteers run a community centre along with a social supermarket, with many relying on them during the cost of living crisis.
But on November 8, when Lesley Reith, 70, chair of trustees for The Carrbridge Centre, went to log in to the charity's Barclays bank account, she said it was "missing". Lesley immediately got in touch with the bank, who she says told her there was a "problem with the mandate" and they had sent a letter.
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Today the banking giant told the ECHO closing an account was a "last resort", and that it was vital that customers respond to requests for up-to-date information. Barclays also confirmed they were in the process of re-opening the account.
Lesley told The ECHO: "I told them [Barclays] we didn't get a letter, if one of us did then we would have mentioned it. One and a half hours and three different people later they eventually said it would take 10 days to sort out.
"We didn't hear anything back by December 14 so another trustee called back and they said what they said was 'completely wrong' and it would be another 10 days (December 1) until it was reinstated. on December 1 the account still wasn't there and now they have told us it will be December 19.
"We have staff who were due wages last Tuesday [November 28] and most of our staff are quite young. Our bills also get paid out of the account, which are bouncing back."
Lesley went on to say Barclays had given them "no options" and it had got to the point where trustees of the charity had had to dip into their own funds to pay staff wages.
Lesley said: "We are so upset that staff wouldn’t be able to pay bills or put food on the table.
"We have told them that we have staff and bills to pay and they have given us no options."
A Barclays spokesperson said: "As part of our ongoing responsibility to help prevent financial crime, and to meet our regulatory obligations, we are required to keep up to date information regarding our customers’ accounts. In order to request this important information, we share a series of communications with our customers, including writing to them by post, and using alert banners on our digitally active customers’ online and mobile banking. It is vital that account holders respond to these requests from their bank.
"We work hard to avoid the last resort of account closure, but we fully understand the issues it can cause customers, and in light of this we are in the process of re-opening the account to allow more time for the information to be shared."
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