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?!

No, they wouldn’t. But it means the bank could say they noticed it and questioned it if it ever got investigated. It’s covers them.

£4k! Honestly i could understand if you'd taken in a briefcase with £400k in but £4000 is relative peanuts. Must've got a jobsworth.

I'd have said clearly they didn't want my money and I'd take it to another bank!

This.

Banks have a 'money laundering' procedure.

Don't take it personally.

Where you would be asked the same question, money launderint rules arent bank specific although maybe you d find one with a slightly higher limit for asking but why waste your time?

Ive just looked the deposit up on the app and the cashier registered it as cash or card deposit
after all that!

its made me rhink .. if someome was money laundering they wdnt actally admit it wd they so what is the pokmt of the question!

also a relative gave us 10k via bank as oart of an inheritance .. why was this then not questioned…

it feels v big brother !

I paid in some cash recently and the cashier told me that their limit was £5k with a little smile to suggest I stay under that

It's not being a jobswortb to comply with money laundering rules, the penalties can be quite severe. The cashier probably couldn't care less but it's a small part of their role to do the proper procedures, why wouldn't they?

When I wanted to transfer £5k to DS as a gift, it was stopped and I had to ring the fraud line and answer loads of questions but that seemed more for scams than money laundering

Is it usual for YOU though to deposit cash like that? That’s the key, not whats
normal for others

Weve been with pur bank sunce 1982 . We have a brill record . No loans . No credit cards .
never in o/ d .. i am scared they are going to report us / watch our account now .. when they have no reason

Indeed. I worked for a bank and it was discovered that a manager at a particular branch was skimming money from accounts (small amounts that wouldn’t be spotted easily) and sending it off to a terrorist organisation.

But hey, someone depositing their own cash into their brown account…

Because it came from another bank account and so has traceability, I'm not sure why you're making this so hard

It doesn't matter if a money launderer lies, it's about building a picture to help if needed in the futrue. Obviously the cashier has no clue where money comes from but they have to record what you tell them

This is standard behaviour by banks and it has been for years, nobody will say 'oh yes I'm laundering money' in response to the questions but the banks can say that they asked.

No its not normal for us to deposit such amounts . But we dont sell things all the time! It was a one off

It’s an unusually amount of cash to be paying in OP. Most transactions of that size would be done by bank transfer.

Of course they aren't putting you on some kind of major crime overlord list, youre getting fanciful now.

Literally no one cares, nothing will happen, no knocks on the door or strange cars lurking outside your house, nothing.

Because it’s not cash. It was a bank transfer and can be traced.

So all good then, you’ve explained, they’ve noted and unless they see you “selling bikes for £4k” on a weekly basis there will be no more about it.

this builds a pattern of behaviours and records the plausibility of your testimony. In this case all is well

Shame they don't go after the big boys.
The city wasn't know as the Russian Laundromat for nothing.

Opinion | The Pandora Papers Expose Britain’s Role in Money Laundering - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

Ok .. it just annoys be when was made to feel guilt about selling something.

Bank staff are obliged by the law to report any suspected money laundering. If you started paying large sums of cash in regularly they might find it suspicious and report it. It gets reviewed internally and then if that department finds it questionable it will be reported to the police I believe.

You need to stop making this a big deal. They weren’t trying to make you feel guilty and they won’t put you on a watch list over £4000

Don't worry OP, I was made to feel guilty because I wanted to gift DS £5k, it's the way it is now, soon we won't be able to spend our money as we choose at all

Please don’t honestly the staff won’t even remember you come tomorrow ☺️

@VisionsOfSplendour have you ever heard of a joke?