11:31am Wednesday 10th March 2010
By Daniel Binns
A BANK has issued a grovelling apology to a widow after it sent a letter to her late husband about a new “agreed” overdraft limit on his non-existent bank account.
Rosaline Thornhill, 62, of Upper Swaines in Epping, was left deeply upset after Barclays sent the correspondence to her husband Richard, who died of a heart attack four years ago.
But despite promises of an explanation from staff at the bank's Epping High Street branch, Mrs Thornhill only received an apology three weeks later after Barclays discovered that the Guardian was due to publish an article about her ordeal.
“If they held their hands up and apologised then it would have all been forgotten about, but they just ignored me for weeks,” she said.
“All I wanted was for them to say sorry. Just before my husband died Barclays cancelled all our insurance by mistake and my husband said he wanted to switch banks. After he died I did and I haven't had anything to do with them for four years.
“It was horribly upsetting when I received the letter out of the blue. I was in floods of tears.
“I went to the bank and they said they'd look when he agreed to it, but I said the only way they could've done that would be to get a clairvoyant. They then said they would get back to me but never did.
“I wouldn't want this to happen to anyone else either. I'm very cross. I think they just took my details and then binned my letter.”
A Barclays spokesman said: “It is clear that on this occasion we have failed to live up to our own high standards and we have apologised unreservedly to Mrs Thornhill.
“We will also be sending her some flowers as a gesture of goodwill.”
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