Bank won’t let me retrieve credit on credit card

No they have a system to stop fraud. However its clearly not always the best for customers and the one size fits all approach that most financial institutions have these days is a pain. But in this case I understand their view as well as yours.

Thankfully common sense won out.

You mis-judged your cash flows. An account which is not designed to be in credit does now have a surplus balance. Your overall picture is that you have surplus cash that you didn't expect - lucky you!

Pay for your general life expenses from the surplus balance in the credit card instead of the current account you would usually use. The current account will be in surplus by £650 in a month or so. Use that money to put into savings.

It is ridiculous to go to the Ombudsman over this, you will not make any headway at all and it just uses up resources unnecessarily.

If your credit card company can see a recent transaction out against a recent credit in, it can red flag for potential first party fraud and the team may need to investigate further to rule first party fraud out.

If it doesn't flag for this and there are no concerns, the credit card company I work for do not issue refunds on pending transactions. Any pending transaction can be recalled by the merchant. A refund will only be giving when out of pending.

I see you have now got your credit back, that is pretty good of your card provider if the credit transaction was still pending and no investigation was involved.

How on earth is this against their t and cs. Their t and cs do not dictate how you spend or save money on your current account, nor does it dictate what you’re allowed to spend using the credit card,

Having a credit card in credit can be a way of cleaning dirty money, especially if you have done a balance transfer recently. They will be being cautious because of this.

Either wait a few days until the pending transaction drops off or start using it for food and petrol and put your food and petrol money into savings.

Absolutely not. I got refund to my normal bank account from Asda credit card when I received large refund to it. No issue at all. No credit score issue or fee.
Twice I might add

I’ve just transferred credit from my AMEX to my current account. Was incredibly easy. I’m assuming once the pending transaction clears they will move it?

£640 in a saving account is about £1.5 a month in interest, and after tax even less. Not worth getting steamy about

Or you can very precisely describe what happened all over internet, like you did here, but with naming bank. Send to their customer service messages with links.
Make sure it's an honest picture.
They'll probably get back very quickly.

It is even more friction to go through the complaints process then the ombudsman process.
Sometimes things in life are unjust and the only option is to live with it.

What a tough life you have... Horrific! Thoughts and prayers.

If that's all you're getting you need a better account and most people won't be taxed on savings interest anyway due to ISAs and personal savings allowances.

Also, for that sort of amount, it's having savings that's important, not what interest is earned as it could replace a washing machine, pay a car bill or go towards Christmas or any other variation in monthly expenses.

But this thread just shows how weird MN is about credit cards because the obvious answer was always to just spend the £640 on groceries and other day to day costs and put the money not spent on those items in a savings account either in dribs and drabs until you get to £640, or in one lump when the credit has been used up, using the money that has built up in the OPs credit account because it's not been spent on groceries and other day to day costs.

presumably you would've spend the 640 in a month or two rather than a year, so more like £3.

Academic now anyway as you sorted it, nice one.

Refunds from legitimate companies are absolutely part of money laundering.

Do what you’ve done 10 times with 10 different companies over a year, that’s £6k that immediately looks like it’s come from refunds, and it’s now so much harder to trace the money back to its original source, particularly as it’s across multiple accounts.

You might not be money laundering, but someone who is uses legitimate means to layer cash and transactions to hide where they’re from.

Anyway, they didn’t not do it for a money laundering reason as I’ve had money back from my credit cards a few times in that scenario. They did it because you also have a pending balance so they’ll only do it when the credit card is clear, which yours wasn’t. Had you waited it would have been easier, but you got your answer anyway.

that 2.8%, even if it's double that it's still only £3 a month, which is the point. it's very little.

and surely if you need the washing machine, car bill etc, you would just use the credit card!

total non story really

Am I insane, or someone who is involved in money laundering cases?

I’d love to hear which bit is insane.

What are you talking about? My comment is in response to the chain of messages talking about taking it out as a cash withdrawal or as a cash transfer (which is a balance transfer but to your bank account)…the things I’ve said will happen if it is done either of those ways.

What you had was a credit balance refund, and so you did not do a cash transfer or a cash withdrawal, and so didn’t get charged

You aren’t insane, you just actually understand how people can hide the proceeds of crime. The previous poster doesn’t