A Scots pensioner who was declared dead is fighting back against a bank who wrongly thought she was deceased.
Margaret Macdonald said the “terrible experience” with TSB led to her direct debits and car insurance being cancelled without warning. The bank’s failures even led to the DVLA to write to her estate’s executors to offer their condolences – a situation that left the widow unable to sleep due to stress.
Margaret, from Stornoway, said the nightmare before Christmas had left her unable to “trust anybody anymore – and certainly not banks”.
She is now campaigning for banking procedures to be tightened to ensure other people don’t fall victim to the same harrowing experience.
“I was devastated by that letter from the DVLA. The TSB’s failures meant that they had made me break the law. It really began to affect my life. I couldn’t think of anything else, I couldn’t sleep,” she told We Love Stornoway.
“I contacted DVLA and told them that I was not deceased, and I asked for the direct debit to be reinstated, and they said they couldn’t do that. As far as they were concerned, I was dead. The TSB had told them I was deceased. It was official.
“When I checked online to see my car details, I could see that I had been driving around with a car which had no road tax since November 15, 2024. I immediately went to the Post Office and paid the road tax.
“Then I contacted the police just to let them know what was going on in case they stopped me – and to tell them I was still alive.”
Police Scotland advised Margaret to go to a lawyer and to check her insurance and to make sure that everything had been reinstated.
She added: “The DVLA even offered the executor of my estate their condolences. I was assured by the bank that all my direct debits were reinstated, but it seems they were not, and I was illegally driving my car because of incompetence by the bank.”
The nightmare story began shortly before Christmas when Margaret received an email out of the blue from OVO Energy confirming her direct debit had been cancelled.
“I thought nothing of it as I thought it was a scam. But the next morning I got a phone call from another service provider saying that I had cancelled that direct debit, which I hadn’t done,” she said.
“And then I couldn’t get on the app to check my bank account. So I phoned the bank, and they told me it was a clerical error. I asked them to check my balance. This lady was able to tell me that there was an error. And I told her to instruct her to reinstate my direct debits.”
Margaret discovered the next day her bank card had been blocked. When she contacted TSB again, she was stunned to be told she was marked as dead.
She continued: “I asked what happened and they said that a deceased marker had appeared against my account. I said that surely they would need a death certificate for that. The man said yes. But it was an error by a colleague who pressed the wrong button.”
It would take a further week before Margaret could access her money.
The whole process has left a deep mark on the widow. She added: “I had a terrible time at Christmas time. I just had a total breakdown, you know. The letter from DVLA made it worse. It specifically says the bank notified them of my death. It has set me back a lot.
“I just don’t know how I’m going to cope with it all. On December 20, I noticed a hearse parked opposite my window. I began to think I’d died again.
“It wasn’t funny, it was a terrible experience. But of course it was just waiting for a cortege from the church down the road. It’s something that you wouldn’t want anyone to go through.”
She added: “I don’t think I’ll ever get over this. I don’t trust anybody anymore. And certainly not banks. And certainly I won’t have any money in a bank except what I need to have in a bank.”
A spokesman for TSB did not answer when asked by the Record to explain what went wrong.
In a statement, the bank said: “We apologise for the inconvenience and any distress caused to our customer. We are engaging with the Ombudsman on this case, as we take the experience of all our customers very seriously.”
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