To think banks shouldn't do this

[Northernsoulgirl45]

We have had a joint account with our bank for almost 20 years. We have always paid a good salary in and have never been overdrawn.
So two weeks ago we paid a cheque into our account for circa 15K.which was settlement for an insurance claim. This was subsequently debited as an unpaid cheque. Cue lots of stress trying to find out the reason why.
So we finally received a letter telling us that the transaction was subjuct to a security check and we must provide id and proof of the transaction.
Apparently they would than decide whether our account should remain open.
They also stopped the account so a new direct debit we set up was rejected causing embarrassment.
Of course we complained but we were told that they were within their rights to do this. I assume this is to do with money laundering regulation but it still seems heavy handed
AIBU to think this ?

Sorry typing atrocious.

I think the direct debit and embarrassment would have hacked me off the most.

Yes, common sense should prevail, sadly it’s just not that common anymore.

Which bunch of idiots was it?

I hope your DH is able to make a good recovery 🌷

When paying in large cheques it’s a good idea to write on the paying in slip a brief explanation of where it’s from - medical insurance, policy number etc then they have no excuse for their incompetence.

I can understand them putting stop on the cheque - then behind scenes getting in touch with the issuing company.

Freezing the account - stopping DD and threatening to close the account all seem very wrong.

We paid in a similar amount 10 years ago for similar reasons with no issue.

Lordamighty idea of contacting a column is a good one - helped with a company we'd bought a laptop from that they kept taking in for repair and returning either already broken or broke very soon afterwards - wasted so much of our time going through their generic phone system that couldn't cope with this problem. Paper got involved and it was sorted immediately.

Natwest did similar to me, one day out of the blue they sent me a letter saying they'd reviewed my account and decided they could no longer provide me with one and I had 60 days then my acct was closed for good.
They refused to discuss why with me and I ended up with a fraud mark against my name which stopped me being able to open another account.
Thankfully that's been removed now and I have an account with Halifax but I've still not had a reason from Natwest as to why they decided to close my account and list me as fraudulent!

It's not just payments in that can get your account locked. We tried to pay 3 guys who replaced our roof. There was over £10k in the account, the amounts were between £600 and £1000. Santander decided that they were "unusual" so locked the account. It didn't help that they wanted to text me a code and didn't believe me that there is no mobile signal at my house. To retrieve the code, I have to run up a flight of steps then up a massive garden then climb onto the roof of my shed. Then get said code, climb off, run back and put the code in the website before it times out. Usain Bolt would struggle! In the end I went into the city centre and yelled. To be fair, the manager was brilliant. He arranged for me to go after the close of business the next day and said that he and 2 of his staff would stay until it was sorted. Even then, Head Office didn't believe him (I took photos of the before & after of my roof to prove it) and it took 90 minutes.

Another saga was Barclays. I borrowed £50k off my dad as a bridging loan oil MiL's house was sold. I paid it back 3 weeks later. Kind dad didn't care me interest. So £50k into my account week 1. £50k out 3 weeks later. At least they had the manners to phone me and demand how I knew the person I was transferring all this money to. Umm I've only just changed my name on my account. My maiden name is the same as my dad's and it's all there to read....

Seems like this is a common problem. Closing the account wont help.
Spoke to customer complaints and we are thankfully getting some compensation but they still say that they followed procedurers correctly and the compensation is only because the branch where we paid the cheque in handled it badly.

No queries from Lloyds when Dh's lump sum went in the account when he retired from the Armed Forces in 2014 and it was well above the limit that triggers an investigation. Perhaps they trust HMG!!

They did ring to query an endowment cheque that went in before that, but on my in terms of could they get their mitts on it by selling us investments. It went straight into the mortgage.

If it’s out of normal deposit pattern then yes, they’ll do this. This is all they’ll tell you when they apologise for the embarrassment it caused.

Monthly salaries coming in via BACS are totally different to a one off cheque payment.

They should call but they probably don’t have time.

No queries from Lloyds when Dh's lump sum went in the account when he retired from the Armed Forces in 2014 and it was well above the limit that triggers an investigation. Perhaps they trust HMG!! not a cheque but money by bacs from an employer like had been every month very different

I would move account anyway. And make a fir written complaint regardless of the compensation. It is not acceptable to treat customers like this when some easy investigations could have been made for them to ensure the transaction was genuine. Perfectly acceptable fir then to withhold the put while they do this but completely heavy handed to block the whole account.

We sold a flat that we had rented out and completed last week. A large sum of money was transferred by our solicitor into our account. No problem. Then we wanted to transfer the money out to a building society for isas - bank blocked the transfer as it was unusual activity on our account. We then had to ring up and speak to the bank are were then put on hold for 10 minutes while the woman went off to get authorisation.

We managed to do two transfers but the following day tried to transfer more out - blocked again and back on hold. I understand to some extent but they accepted our money with no problem but we were just not allowed to invest the money away from the bank. We are with HSBC.

Can anyone suggest a good bank as we have been having problems with HSBC for a while.

Diana Perhaps. We will see on December when he retires from the current job and takes the pension pot from there in a lump sum. It will be interesting as it will be an international transfer.

If it’s out of normal deposit pattern then yes, they’ll do this. This is all they’ll tell you when they apologise for the embarrassment it caused.

They can't all do it

Otherwise it would have happened two weeks ago when we made our deposit

Maybe its different banks...or we were lucky I suppose