Bank questioning our deposit of 4k ! Why?

[Selfraisings]

Dh has sold his electric bike as he has arthritis and it wasnt for him anymore . He sold it for cash at buyers behesr.
we took it to the bank today.. was treble quized.. thats a lot od cash, where is it from , told them , rhen we got grilled what sort of bike was it , on and on.. then they asked again.. how did you get the money again.. felt like we were really being grillled / suspicious.. what going on ?? !! Are they going to put the spotlighy on us or something?!!!
feel like the implication is we have done something wrong?!

Didn't it raise questions with you as to why someone would want to make a £4k purchase in cash?

It's not the bike, it's the cash.

They have to check it's from legitimate means and not money laundering or proceeds of crime.

No its normal to pay cash round here . Farmers do it all the time.
and it wasnr a bike . It was electric bike . Some are 7k plus to buy

Ah that explains why they were so keen to pay cash. It probably is laundered money. I hope you've got the buyers details for after the Bank make their report...

Nothing to do with the bike, it's the amount of cash

It's a legal requirement of the bank to ensure their customers aren't money laundering.

NatWest were fined £264 million and HSBC £64 million for allowing money laundering.

It is unusual to have that much cash, even working in a high street bank it isn't something you see every week. They're right to ask the questions, be grateful the counter staff are vigilant and unafraid to challenge unusual transactions.

It’s just standard procedure, I’ve worked for a mortgage provider in the past. We didn’t question anything under 10k but this was a while ago and different companies have different polices anyway. Like others have said it’s for money laundering checks. They aren’t accusing you of anything and the person who asked for it probably wasn’t even suspicious. It’s usually just to check a box to say it’s been noticed for when the auditors look at it. The company could get into trouble if they don’t. Don’t worry about it.

The banks get themselves in all sorts of a dither about these kinds of things. I don't think that amount in cash is unusual for the purchase of something second hand. The amount of people that get swindled out of money by people claiming chargebacks, etc, I can understand the security of cash (as long as you can be confident it's not fake!).

That said, it's always worth having something on paper or electronically that confirms the sale or purchase for both parties. Without evidence of the cash or a signed receipt, OP's husband could claim his bike had been stolen by the buyer.

I know too many people having issues with Barclays in particular at the moment. They recently got done for not checking things properly and effectively allowing money laundering through their accounts, so they're now being extra pedantic.

It's a huge amount of cash, did the buyer have a minder with him/her ?
If they insisted on cash, I would suspect them of criminal activity.
The bank was quite right to question you, a Bank Transfer is safer for everyone.

If you came by the money honestly there shouldn't be a problem. Banks
have to be alert to money laundering, theft, drug dealing and other illegal activities.

Yep its anti money laundering. They are really super hot on this now and quiz you in depth. I changed some money for a holiday and got quizzed, husband transferred some money for some legal stuff and got quizzed almost to the point where he started wondering if he had actually committed a crime and forgotten! Don't worry about it, we should be grateful they are clamping down on this and helping to reduce fraud.

Are you joking about a minder?

Maybe I live a different life but buying and selling modes of transport for cash is a totally normal thing to do

Presumably he buyer want wearing a sign highlighting the fact they had cash with them. You can fit that amount in an envelope easily

Did they really triple quiz though or just ask? I deposited 5k cash reluctantly in Virgin Money bank. DH has “pocket money” as do I, I save mine in a savings account he withdrew his as cash and kept it in his drawer (idiot). He saved up for a nice Omega watch and asked me to pay it into the bank.

when they asked where it came from I told them. “DH is in idiot, he’s no experience of money laundering, I can evidence how it was accumulated and he wants to buy a watch”

All I got was “must be a very nice watch” and the bank lady wrote it on the back of the deposit sheet.

He now saves his pocket money in a bank account. All auditable.

If you said you could trace it, maybe they would be more amendable.

I actually agree that we should be accountable for money transactions but, Sometimes it’s a bit overkill.

You should have said I'm a plumber and this is from when people pay me cash in hand so I don't have to pay Income Tax but it's ok 'cos that's not Money Laundering.

But hiw will they know that we cane about it honestly?! I mean how cd they even tell!!
money seems an odd thing these days!

For eg my neighbour paid cash to her window fitter .. it seems normal here . We used ro deal in cash in the world !

Ah, thank you.
I'd read it as a modern version of cash converters or Ziffit, and couldn't understand why it was cash!

But why? Why? This thread is bringing out the crazies, who would make up nonsense when all you do it say where the money came from and go on with your day

Thai is a non event 😀

I mean if someone mjney laundered they wdnr actually say would they anyway !

I worked as a cashier in a building society in a fairly rural area, one of our customers brought in £6,000 in cash as he had sold a horse. I duly recorded on the paying in slip, as per money laundering regulations.

A few weeks later the fraud department contacted me to check the transaction, I confirmed exactly what had gone on. They asked me to change the record to a car sale as they didn’t have a way to mark it down as a horse!!

I refused and pointed out it would be fraudulent 😒

If you do anything like this again, just ask the buyer to pay by bank transfer. They can do it instantly using their phone although it will be simpler to do a token test purchase before sending a large amount to a new payee.

Most will prefer that as they don't have to go to the bank and go through a similar experience that you just have and they won't worry about being mugged for the money.

I think the average bank cashier doesn't have the necessary to check notes for drugs though might have a list of serial nos of stolen notes. Certainly wasn't in our remit in my days on the cash.

Once had a customer dump £40k into the drop box at my till. He was taken into the managers office with another cashier to count it. Don't remember what it was from. We hadn't long got note counting machines.

Don't understand sarcasm eh?

Jesus christ do you really think anyone would actually say that! People that are tax dodging are trying to hide it, just like people doing money laundering are!

She did say where the money came from and went about her day, as I did when it happened to me. What I objected to is that it took me 50 minutes to get off the phone for depositing a relatively small amount of money into my own account when actual criminals are actually Money Laundering i.e its an observation that financial institutios should spend more of their resources investigating local nail bars and car washes etc and less of them repetitively questioning someone about where they got 4K. You should be able to state it once and go about your business.

I have to do anti-ML training at work every year, even though I work in IT, which is so ridiculously long, detailed and repetitive that I now actually know how to ML if anyones wants to know, which I've laways thought was a bit counter-productive to teh training purposes ...

There is often a limit you can pay a new payee on a banking app, maybe it was because of this, perhaps they didn't realise you have to use the website for larger transactions if they were on a phone