Barclays Bank review: Overdrft fees

After we moved to the USA in the summer of 2003, we made fairly regular visits to the UK. We typically visited the Bromsgrove branch to check on our accounts and replenish them, if needed, with American dollars. When we were in England in May 2024, we tried to make a deposit of $4000 into sterling at the Barclays Bank in Kidderminster (the Bromsgrove branch having been reduced to a welcome wagon). For some reason they would only let us take a cash withdrawal, not make a deposit. After our return to the States, I forgot about that prohibition and assumed that we had a great enough balance that I could make a deposit with our Barclays debit card for a 2025 cottage let in the Isle of Man. Unfortunately, that incurred an overdraft, for which I must take full responsibility.
Because of my faulty memory and my habit of simply placing our Barclays Bank statements in its folder, I did not notice the minus when our June 2024 statements arrived by post. Then I caught on by the following month and so arranged for a transfer to more than cover the outstanding amount.

I had hoped to take up this matter at the Worcester branch during a personal visit in May of 2025, but we had to cancel the England part of our trip because of my medical problems. While I must accept responsibility for the overdraft and some penalty, I write to complain about the failure of Barclays to give us timely notice of the overdraft the way “normal” banks do (our Easton bank notifies customers of an overdraft within a week). Had that been done, I would surely have made a corrective deposit – especially given the amount of the overdraft and the exorbitant and uxorious interest penalties in Barclays overdraft “service” (recently terminated). These penalties were £27.95, £38.89, £37.67, and £4.86, for a total of £109.37.

In in 2020, well before this incident, the Financial Conduct Authority set forth new rules which stopped banks from charging a higher prices for unarranged overdrafts than for arranged ones, and banned fixed fees for borrowing through an overdraft. Banks were subsequently required to price overdrafts by a simple annual interest rate. These requirements seem not to have been met in our case.

We appeal to you to reduce the amount of that past interest penalty.