Why did Barclays freeze our Neighbourhood Watch bank account? TONY HETHERINGTON investigates

Tony Hetherington is Financial Mail on Sunday's ace investigator, fighting readers corners, revealing the truth that lies behind closed doors and winning victories for those who have been left out-of-pocket. Find out how to contact him below. 

A.P. writes: Our Neighbourhood Watch has a community bank account with Barclays. 

One of the signatories died, and the remaining signatory contacted the bank to add me to the mandate. 

The paperwork was completed, and I visited the bank with the new mandate form and proof of my identity. 

But when I then emailed and wrote to the bank, I received no response.

Tony Hetherington replies: Receiving no reply was just the start of your problems. When you called the bank and spoke to someone you believed was in Africa, they agreed that Barclays had received the new mandate form. However, there was a question hanging over your appointment as a signatory, and the speaker gave you a different number so you could call someone in India, who in turn told you to go to your branch, which you had already done.

You called Barclays again, this time speaking to Stavros in Greece, who told you the new mandate should take effect within a fortnight.

It didn't, so you wrote to the bank's headquarters. You were advised that a lot of work had been going on in the background, and that you should hear something later that week. You heard nothing, of course, and when you complained you were told the matter had been escalated to senior management.

No reason was offered, but a couple of weeks later the other signatory on the Neighbourhood Watch account tried to make use of it and the branch told her that the account, which contained £650, had been frozen. At this point, you contacted me, saying that 'Barclays has seized our funds!'

I asked the bank what on earth had gone so badly wrong that it had needed to freeze the account of a community group whose sole purpose is to warn against crime. Barclays told me: 'This is a rare occasion of an error having occurred when the account was initially opened in 2007.'

Your Neighbourhood Watch scheme was mistakenly given a personal Everyday Saver account instead of one for a local association or society. This had been noticed when you applied to change the mandate, and the bank was now switching you to a Business Premium account.

On the bright side, Barclays apologised for the error and inconvenience and added £500 to the account. Less helpfully, the bank only makes such switches on one day each month, and you missed the latest batch by 24 hours, delaying the whole process again. I went back to Barclays HQ and the handover was quickly made. The bank even added another £200 to its earlier £500 apology.

So, problem solved? Not quite. A bizarre letter from Barclays arrived, saying that because the Neighbourhood Watch had changed its 'trading address'– meaning statements would go to your home – the bank wanted a copy of your business's lease or rental agreement, or utility bills, insurance contracts, correspondence from HMRC, letters from the Financial Conduct Authority or The Law Society, or signed confirmation from an accountant or solicitor. Fail to supply at least one of these documents showing your 'business name', and your nice new account would be frozen again.

Once more, Barclays apologised. It was all a misunderstanding. The bank knew you were not running a business, and it would happily accept a utility bill or something similar as evidence of your home address, though like some mad Alice In Wonderland scene where nothing is what it seems, Barclays explained to me that, even though the account is not for a business, your address is still regarded as a trading address.

Once upon a time, perhaps in the era when Mr Mainwaring of Dad's Army was the local bank manager and knew every customer, accounts were less complex. Now banks – not just Barclays – are so far removed from their customers that they rely on box-ticking exercises instead of common sense.

You showed Barclays your income tax coding notice which included your address. Your account is now running normally. But the only really good thing to emerge from all this is that your Neighbourhood Watch is unexpectedly £700 better off.

Lettings letdown

D.F. writes: We have an apartment in Tenerife which we advertise through lettings company VRBO UK. 

We received a booking and the £502 payment was due soon afterwards, but VRBO said it was sent to the account of an Alfred Capper. 

I have never heard of him, but VRBO refused to pay me, saying it couldn't recover the money.

Tony Hetherington replies: When you told VRBO that you had not received the £502 it should have sent to your bank account, it told you it had asked a firm called Hyperwallet to investigate. VRBO told you that Hyperwallet had replied that 'unfortunately no funds remain for recovery on this occasion'. This was no explanation at all, but VRBO came up with an equally dismissive and useless response, saying that it had sent the money to Payoneer (EU) Limited, a Gibraltar payment-processing firm.

VRBO is part of the Expedia travel group, which told me that you had made contact after spotting that your account details had been changed to an unknown Payoneer account, and that 'our team quickly investigated and determined that his host account may have been compromised'.

Expedia claimed to have sent you a form to complete so you could recover your £502. Two days after I questioned VRBO, you were told it would pay you after all. The day after that, £502 appeared in your bank account. Magic!

If you believe you are the victim of financial wrongdoing, write to Tony Hetherington at Financial Mail, 9 Derry Street, London W8 5HY or email tony.hetherington@mailonsunday.co.uk. Because of the high volume of enquiries, personal replies cannot be given. Please send only copies of original documents, which we regret cannot be returned.