Bank worker has just lectured me on my spending

They should realise not everyone shops at Primark and frankly if you like the finer things in life 1200£ is completely reasonable!!! Especially if you are clearly responsible and have saved for it.
Ask to put your payment limits up - my card used to be blocked and in the end I asked for the limits to be increased and this seemed to solve the issue as it was no longer classed as ‘erratic spending’. Xox

Some of the stories on here, there are some pretty terrible banks blocking cards for some obvious everyday spending.
Problem is this sort of transaction monitoring alerts have been offshored to people with little to no experience.
The person on the phone should not have mentioned any suspicion of money laundering at all

If they lectured you they overstepped their remit. BUT to save up for half a year and spend it all in one day? They DO have a very good point.

It's because so many people are getting scammed.

Interesting. So money laundering must be absolutely rife at present,

Years ago DH was in hospital I had to order some furniture on card - not usual but not unkown. Flagged up by fraud - fair enough spoke to them said yes I had paid for those item - she still fucking cancelled the payments and cards as well leaving me with no access to money.

Usually DH would be around so would still have access to money. Had to beg family for tide me over till new cards came - could not have come at a worse time and there was an attitude it was my own fault.

Ah so it’s like the thing on the banking app that says ‘are you absolutely SURE you want to send these funds? You may still be at risk’.
Just make the payment, dickhead. It’s my money.

I would definitely complain to the banking Ombudsman, complain to the branch in the first instance and check there is no red flag on your account.

And people who do get scammed will very often blame the bank. Yes, the customer aurhorised the payments and confirmed it was all above board - but why didn't the bank stop them? 😭

Unfortunately under the new rules on banks weeding out fraud they can speak to you like this. I feel your pain, I tried to transfer some money to pay for a bathroom remodel. It was blocked so I thought never mind, phone and get it unblocked. Didn't happen, the fraud dept at Lloyds said that I couldnt transfer money to a personal account acting as a business (not true, only LTD companies must have a business account by law). The guy in the fraud dept then told me that he suspected fraud as he couldn't find the name of the company at Companies House. When I told him that the contractor was just one person not registed at Companies House because he was not a limited company, he then froze my account and accused me of being complicite in a fraud. I had at this point been through security checks etc. To say I was fuming was an understatement. I calmed down and phoned back managed to speak to someone a bit more reasonable and my account was unlocked. I transferred money to my Barclays account and paid the contractor with no problems. Beware of Lloyds fraud dept, its populated with misinformed on stupid people. I am raising a complaint and will take it from there.

Confused as to why spending this amount would look like money laundering? Are you buying several of the same item then returning them, getting refunds or store credit repeatedly?

did you even bother reading the OP?

She wasn't bothered about the bank doing the checks, it was the way the staff member spoke to her that has annoyed her.

Not to mention she specifically didn't WANT to spend regularly, which she shouldn't have to do given it's her OWN MONEY!

If you are going to spend an unusual amount of money you can cell the bank beforehand and get the payment authorised. For example I wanted to purchase £5000 of goods on a US auction site so I just rang the bank before paying the invoice, gave the payment details and it went through with no problem. Another way is to transfer the funds to my Paypal account and pay with my Paypal business debit card. It take a bit longer to go through but as long as the money is sitting in your account Paypal will do it. Unfortunately PP give a worse rate of exchange than the bank.

I think banks can be damned either way much as a lot of their behaviours I don't like.

What annoys me is that there is responsibility placed on banks, yet little seemingly done about other money laundering.

I had this last September was having hip surgery in October so decided to get all the Christmas shopping done beforehand. Spent a lot of money in a couple of weeks. Barclays blocked my card. I had to contact someone. When I explained they were fine. I've decided to do it this way again this year have spent a lot of money in the last month. Also had to pay 5k on new windows to an overseas bank. Everything went through okay so far 🤞

YANBU but a better way to handle it is to just say at the time - I'll want your opinion on my spending habits when I'm spending your money.

The issue isn't that they are doing money laundering checks, it's that the person phoning was rude and judgmental, trying to tell OP not to spend her money the way OP to wanted to even though it was perfectly legal.

This makes no sense. I used to work in banking and (unless the rules have changed a LOT) id she suspected you of money laundering she should have mentioned it to you! Its called "tipping off" and is a crime in its own right!!

In which case if she did mention it, that is the complaint you make. As well as "she lectured me about how I was spending my money in a way I found condescending and rude", obviously.

Except OP doesn't care about that, does she?

I understand they have an obligation to do this, and they’re trying to stop money laundering and VAT avoidance, but it’s utterly piss-boiling to be given the third degree and treated like a criminal when you simply want access to your hard-earned, already fully taxed money.

I’m living temporarily in a country where no such restrictions apply. It’s a cash economy and they’ll literally hand over wads of it in a swag bag, no questions asked, if you have it in your account. It’s so unusual now to be allowed to spend your own money without a whiff of suspicion that I feel like I’m robbing the bank or somehow getting away with something every time I make a larger-than-usual withdrawal!

There’s so much to be said for cash sometimes!

Oh I had this! I sold my car as part exchange at a dealership. To pay for the rest of the brand new car 32k, I had taken out a car loan from my bank. But guess what? The payment was declined and I had to talk to 3 different people at length, all asking ridiculous questions like "why do you want to buy this make and model? Is this the price you'd expect to pay? What does the gear lever look like? What was your old car's milage?" Why did they try to stop me from spending the loan they'd given be a week before, explicitly for this purpose? When I said I was buying It because of the colour I was told that was a silly reason. It was excruciatingly stressful as the dealer was embarrassed and drumming his fingers , my children were also mortified, and I'd already surrendered my old car and was due to go on a driving holiday the next day! I have given up alcohol, and this has been the closest I have come to "needing" a drink in the old way, when I got home!

I think people are missing the nuance, the woman clearly didn’t think the op was money laundering, she was saying it could look like that and be a red flag.

but it’s bizzare, for 1200, however often people base it on their own experience and this may have seemed like a huge amount to the woman, due to her own earnings.

Quite