Can a creditcard company do this?

acebanditcat

My Boyfriend has a Vanquis Visa Card and today recieved a letter which bafffled me. It reads:

"We have recently recieved a payment in your Vanquis Card account for £681.00.

Under the circumstances we have had to temporarily suspend your account in accordance with the Terms & Conditions of your account.
In order to release the funds we need to discuss the origin of this payment and confirm that this was authorised by yourself.

Please do not use your card as it will be retained & destroyed.

Please call us immediatley to discuss the matter"

So we phoned and after security checks with them and my partner I spoke to them and was told. "we apologise it is a security check as there is a lot of fraud about they needed to varify where it had come from". I explained to the gentleman that money is paid to this creditcard account from my bank account every month and occasionly in dribbs and drabs as the month goes on etc and that there has never been a problem. He said it was because it was a large amount. (strange as it has a credit limit of £2500 and we use most of it and pay it off in full every single month so they have had larger amounts paid)

I even stated that there had been three other payments sent to them from the same account three days before. The only reason thne £681 was paid last was because i had to wait for payday.

He then asked me to Fax copies of my statements when my bank sends them to show the payment to them. He said we have done nothing wrong and have not breached any terms and conditions (pointed out the letter says we have!) Also said to him why if its not our fault as to why the card has to be destroyed. he just apologised and said once i fax my bank statements to them they will reorder a new card.

So my question is WHY? I am paying them They are not paying me!
I am paying them from my bank account and its not my visa card.

Is this right?
Any feedback is much appriciated and thanks given in advance.

never-in-doubt

Its basically fraud checks - just send over a statement and prove its coming from your bank account. It could be looked as you're taking out new cards and transferring balances or gambling - vanquis are one of the cards that don't like you to do online gambling, although not banned it's frowned upon.

Its purely to clear your account of any AML flags that may have 'popped up'

Its a pain but they can close the account at their leisure so best just fax over what they want and get it unfrozen....

Budner

yes they can do that. If you don't have a history of making large single payments, it is flagged as a suspicious transaction automoatically. They can do this to ensure they check transactions as per Anti Money Laundering legislation

ALIBOBSY

I think the fact the payment comes from an account not in the cardholders name also rings bells with the computer system.
A bit of a pain, but they are looking for money laundering and are obliged to investigate anything the programme flags as a possible indicator.

ali x

Alex_LS

ALIBOBSY wrote: »

I think the fact the payment comes from an account not in the cardholders name also rings bells with the computer system.

How can they possibly know that?

TMoose

Alex_LS wrote: »

How can they possibly know that?

Because, depending on the bank, and the method (that the bank) used to transfer your funds, the message may well have been recieved by Vanquis with remitter's bank account name and number on.