I'm the Chairman of a national body which has a deposit account and a current account with a large bank (I don't want to get MBClub into trouble, so I'm assuming it's best not to mention names?). The three signatories to the accounts are the Officers - myself, the Treasurer, and the Secretary.
We've had the accounts for many years; obviously we complete a set of forms to change the signatories occasionally when one of the Officers changes. Last time this hapened was in 2004, before that in 2002.
As of last week they appear to have reverted to a set of signatories that are at least 10 years old. They will not speak to me, the Treasurer, or Secretary as they claim we are not authorised on either of the accounts. They have returned cheques signed by us, and refused transfers between the accounts. They say they have no change of signatory forms since the accounts were originally set up. These are scanned and held online - apparently nothing shows on their system for either account.
Because they won't deal with us, they won't tell us who they DO have down on the accounts. However the Treasurer received a letter last week sent to his home address, but with the name of the previous Treasurer (retired in 2002) on it!
Now obviously we've written a very strongly worded letter (also faxed to them same day), and sent a copy of the letter the Treasurer received. We've pointed out that the current officers have been unchanged since 2004 and have been signing cheques regularly since then. The Treasurer is also asked to give the name of one of the other signatories when making transfers between accounts, and where the amount exceeds a certain threshold they call him back at his (registered) phone number as part of the authorisation process.
Any suggestions what else we can do to expedite this? We have creditors to pay, so it's potentially quite serious.
Incidentally I have heard this morning of a WI branch with exactly the same problem, so my guess is some kind of IT cockup (based on > 30 years working in IT ). The accounts were originally with a UK 'high street' name which has been taken over by said bank - I did ask whether this could be anything to do with the transfer but they were adamant that this was not the case ...
We've had the accounts for many years; obviously we complete a set of forms to change the signatories occasionally when one of the Officers changes. Last time this hapened was in 2004, before that in 2002.
As of last week they appear to have reverted to a set of signatories that are at least 10 years old. They will not speak to me, the Treasurer, or Secretary as they claim we are not authorised on either of the accounts. They have returned cheques signed by us, and refused transfers between the accounts. They say they have no change of signatory forms since the accounts were originally set up. These are scanned and held online - apparently nothing shows on their system for either account.
Because they won't deal with us, they won't tell us who they DO have down on the accounts. However the Treasurer received a letter last week sent to his home address, but with the name of the previous Treasurer (retired in 2002) on it!
Now obviously we've written a very strongly worded letter (also faxed to them same day), and sent a copy of the letter the Treasurer received. We've pointed out that the current officers have been unchanged since 2004 and have been signing cheques regularly since then. The Treasurer is also asked to give the name of one of the other signatories when making transfers between accounts, and where the amount exceeds a certain threshold they call him back at his (registered) phone number as part of the authorisation process.
Any suggestions what else we can do to expedite this? We have creditors to pay, so it's potentially quite serious.
Incidentally I have heard this morning of a WI branch with exactly the same problem, so my guess is some kind of IT cockup (based on > 30 years working in IT ). The accounts were originally with a UK 'high street' name which has been taken over by said bank - I did ask whether this could be anything to do with the transfer but they were adamant that this was not the case ...