Barclays refund arrives …more than five years late

The bank is willingly returing my money for a withdrawal I made that wasn't received. What's going on?I have just received a letter from Barclays telling me that a £45 refund is due on my account. It refers to a £40 ATM withdrawal I made from a Royal Bank of Scotland site way back in October 2007. The Barclays' letter says it has been contacted by RBS to inform me the full amount of money I took out wasn't "received", but the account was debited. Its says the account wasn't automatically refunded at the time. I find it amazing that a bank is willing to refund a transaction five years ago. What's going on? JB, RomfordThis is one of the odder announcements made by the banks in recent years. Just before Christmas both RBS and HSBC said they would refund thousands of customers who had made ATM withdrawals but forgotten to pick up their cash.NatWest (owned by RBS) has promised to return £10m to 300,000 people, and you are one of them; those who left money in HSBC cash machines between 2005 and 2011 will be compensated in the same way.In most cases, an ATM automatically takes dispensed cash back into the machine if it is not removed within 30 seconds. When this happened in the past, the other banks automatically returned the credit to customers' accounts. For some reason, and until recently, HSBC and RBS kept the money unless the customer asked for it back.It meant thousands of ATM users who were under the impression that their cash had been taken by a passer-by, or they had dropped it, lost out.Both banks changed their policy in early 2011, and now perform automatic refunds when banks notes are not collected. Some will argue that your repayment is long overdue, but it is welcome nonetheless.We welcome letters but cannotanswer individually. Email us at consumer.champions@guardian.co.uk or write to Bachelor & Brignall, Money, the Guardian, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU. Please include a daytime phone numberBanks and building societiesConsumer affairsConsumer rightsMiles Brignallguardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

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