Rochdale mum's surgery halted over 'unusual transaction'

A mother's lifesaving £250,000 neuro-surgery was cancelled after her bank generated a fraud alert when she tried to pay doctors in the US.

Samantha Smith, from Rochdale, Greater Manchester has Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome.

She spent two-and-a-half hours on the phone to Barclays, but the lifting of restrictions on her account came too late for the clinic in Arizona, which had by then cancelled the operation.

Barclays said it had a duty of care to check unusual transactions and was now helping to "resolve the matter so the payment can be processed as swiftly as possible".