A major UK lender recently took a month’s pension money from an old age pensioner to use the money for repayment of her daughter’s debt.

Although the debt was not the pensioner’s the bank, the Halifax, took the money from her account using a banking law loophole. However, the money has now been returned after an official intervened to help the pensioner get her money back.

Eighty eight year old Caroline Connor was horrified to find that her £100 pension money had been taken from her account. Her daughter was named as a joint account holder on the bank account, which Mrs Connor used solely to receive her pension payments.

However, her daughter had missed a repayment on her £10,000 credit card debt, so the bank swooped in and took the money from the account, which happened to be Mrs Connor’s pension payment for the month.

The bank used the right of set off to take the money from the account, which is a law that allows the bank to take money from savings account to make up for missed debt repayments.

The incident occurred because Mrs Connor’s daughter, who was the one that missed the debt repayment, was a named join account holder on the account from which the money was taken.

Mrs Connor’s daughter, Louise, stated: ‘My mother needs that money to survive. She lives extremely frugally off her small UK pension and a small Canadian one and cannot afford to lose £100. I tried to tell them I was willing and trying to pay off the debt, which was originally built up because my business wasn’t doing so well, but I’m seeing green shoots and the future looks good. I don’t think they need to be so severe about this.’

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