Welcome to Gaia! ::

this is the second time i've had the bank eat items ina trade..have you had probs with the bank if so..how did you fix it...any help appreciated..thanks!

You picked the perfect time to ask, and I'd be glad to help you both.

You see, this happened to me a few days ago. I lost the very uniform I'm wearing, and the pocketwatch (Which was a gift) along with a couple other items. As you can see by my fully uniformed (Is that a word? confused ) avatar, I got the items back. I'll tell you how I did it. It's worked for me twice now.

What you need to do is try to start a trade with the person you were trying to give those items to. (Specifically, I clicked "New Trade" and typed in the name "Angry Pirate" (My mule) I don't know if it makes a difference if you just click the "Trade" button on that little bar below all their posts) You should get a message saying "You already have a trade with this person. Click here to open the trade." Click where it tells you to, and open the trade. Then cancel it. All of your items should be returned to your inventory.

Alternatively, if you want to actually make the trade, you can start the trade normally. Then copy the url of the trade screen where you can add/subtract gold and items to the trade. PM that url to them, then go back to the trade page and stay on it (Or bookmark it and come back later if the person you're trading to is offline, which probably wouldn't be the case.) refreshing every once in awhile until they've done their part and confirmed. Then complete the trade, and everything should be fine.
Even if I left something out, and the trade doesn't work, you can always get your items back using the method I wrote above. It should all work out.

Hope this helps some people. >_> I've had to do both of these.

If it doesn't work, for whatever reason, post here and tell me. Hope you remember who you were trading to. :\ It was easy for me because I was trading to my mule account.