Can you help recover my savings? LH is one of several readers who have written in a similar vein. The following questions and answers hopefully will help. There is no guarantee that a credit balance in such a passbook represents real money. Even these days it is easy enough to get a new passbook if one has been mislaid. Provided, that is, that the organisation still issues passbooks. In years gone by, it was more likely than now that bank and building society counter staff would know people coming in and so few identity checks may have been necessary. Regulations are also more rigorous now. Therefore if the account was subsequently closed and the money withdrawn, a lost passbook that turns up, perhaps, as in this case, decades later, could lead to misplaced raised expectations. LH had moved several times within the immediate area but the property he lived in when the account was active still remains in the family. Mail will have been forwarded on. Recently all his former address details have been provided to the bank. However it is always important to let an institution know about any move. Not least because leaving an address without providing such information could lead to identity theft. This doesn't apply to LH, whose account was with Barclays, but, with so many changes in the financial services world, not only might the money seem elusive but the deposit taker might as well. In such cases for banks call the British Bankers" Association on 0207 216 8800. If it is a building society that has changed into something else see The Building Societies Association website www.bsa.org.uk. Look in the consumers section under "find a building society" and fill in appropriately. Presuming the money is indeed somewhere, www.mylostaccount.org.uk is a hub covering some 85 deposit takers in the UK, including old post office accounts and those with National Savings & Investments. A form needs to be filled in. This should ideally be done online to make it easier to forward to the relevant deposit taker as the service does not have records of its own. Identity checks are done to prevent the service being used for fraudulent purposes. The service is free to the public and is funded by the British Bankers" Association, BBA, the Building Societies Association, BSA, and National Savings & Investments, NS&I. My involvement in LH's case led to the bank searching its computer records going back, it assures me, a number of years as well as making a physical search of records at the branch with no success. I also asked it to check under a different spelling of LH's surname. That too yielded nothing. LH is certain he has not had this money and will not, he says, be letting the matter go. Others in a similar predicament might consider whether they had withdrawn the money or whether it could have been moved on to another deposit account with a different bank. Or was it subsequently put into, say, a PEP, Personal Equity Plan, or later an Isa, Individual Savings Account? Was it used to buy some shares or for, say, a pension contribution? Barclays, the bank concerned here, explained that, when an account has been closed, it maintains records for up to six years after closure. Many in the industry would feel six years is on the short side. Records of unclaimed dormant accounts are kept indefinitely. To minimise the risk of fraud. Sending out statements, chequebooks and other material to a potentially out of date address could enable someone other than the customer to access the account. If, say, a customer does not respond to correspondence asking if they wish to keep their account open or if mail is returned then the funds may be transferred to a secure central account from which they can be withdrawn when the customer comes forward. Deposits which have been in accounts for 15 years or more with no customer triggered activity may have found their way into the Reclaim Fund which passes money on to good causes. See www.reclaimfund.co.uk for some information on this but contact the original deposit taker directly with any queries or concerns. The money though will not be lost to the owner if they come forward. See below. Then the money will be repaid to them. The fund keeps enough back from the charities it distributes to to meet any reclaims.