Postman’s life ‘turned upside down’ after massive bank error put his account £1m in debt

By:
Pramod Thomas

A Royal Mail postman was shocked when he was told his bank account went £1 million overdrawn, according to a report.

Azhar Bhutta, 38, from Bracknell, Berkshire was told by Barclays that his main account was overdrawn by £498,764.27 while his instant ISA savings account was £499,999.11 in the red, the MailOnline reported.

Bhutta, who normally has around £1,000 in his current account, saw the blunder when he logged on to his Barclays app on his mobile phone last week.

He pointed out the error and had his balances corrected soon. However, later he found out that Barclays had cancelled all his monthly direct debits.

According to the report, the bank informed him his account has been suspended while it investigates to see if he has been targeted by fraudsters.

Bhutta has now been forced to open a new account at HSBC and has been warned that it might take up to ten days to set up new direct debits.

“The whole thing has been a nightmare. I feel like my life has been turned upside down when I have done nothing wrong. It was the worst feeling in my life when I saw that each of my accounts were overdrawn by around £500,000,” he was quoted as saying by the MailOnline.

“But the effects of my account being suspended and all my direct debits being cancelled are even worse. It is causing me a major headache trying to sort everything out.”

The postman added that he discovered his alleged giant overdraft after his wife asked him to transfer her some money when he was at work on June 6.

“I just logged on to my banking app as normal and saw these two huge overdraft figures. It was shocking because I have never been in debt before in my life, and I have never ever missed any payments on my mortgage or anything,” he said. 

His boos then asked him to contact the bank to sort things out. Later he called customer services and was told it could not be right as he had an overdraft limit of £3,400. His account was registered as “high risk” and referred it to the fraud team.

‘It seems like it was just an “oops” moment for them, and I was told that somebody would come back to me.’

Bhutta saw that his account balances had been returned to normal around six hours later, the report added.

Now, his monthly direct debit payment had been cancelled, he was locked out of his Barclays app and could not access his account by telephone banking as well.

He told the MailOnline, “I am really worried that I am going to miss a payment to someone and mess up my credit rating. I currently re-mortgage my house every two years to get the best deal, and I am worried that it could affect that.”