Dude, this was one critical banking error right here:

Lady spent three months trying to get her joint bank account back after a banking error marked not only her late husband deceased, but her as well.

She made the call back in November to notify Barclays of her husband's death, but unfortunately somebody decided this meant she — the lady right there on the phone — had also passed away.

[S]he was marked as deceased and the account was closed. Her pension and benefit payments were returned to the Department for Work and Pensions and her direct debits were stopped.

Without any sort of online banking knowledge, we'll call her Marjorie, was unaware that the bank had closed her account. She just went on about her life as if, you know, she was alive or something.

She discovered the mistake when she returned from a family Christmas to find her phone line and energy supply had been cut off and a sheaf of letters from companies and the council demanding payment.

Roper made two trips to her nearest Barclays branch and was told on both occasions by staff that she was recorded as dead. The bank refused to discuss the case with her daughter because her third-party authority had been revoked when the account was closed.

First Christmas without your hubby and this is what you come home to?

Man, I can't imagine.

I bet she just sat down at the kitchen table and cried it out.

"The bank has blocked my mother's income and it cut off her only means of contacting the outside world," Mary Roper said. "For the last month she's been buying food with the £250 she had left in cash and is terrified she'll run out."

Luckily, The Guardian got ahold of the bank and worked everything out for the poor old lady.

Who knows how much longer this would've gone on if not for them.

The account was eventually reopened and her payments restored and backdated after the Guardian intervened. Her phone line and energy supply had already been restored after Roper called her providers to explain.

A Barclays spokesperson said: "We apologise unreservedly for the distress and inconvenience this has caused to our loyal customer. We can confirm that the direct debits have been reinstated, the state pension payments have been received, the account has been amended into joint names and a gesture of goodwill for the disruption caused has been offered."

Now, while I'm glad they got her the money back, I do believe that the thing banks do best is charge fees to people who overdraft on their accounts. Maybe in this case our 91-year-old account holder deserves a little payment of her own for Barclays losing track of her money.

Just sayin.