Halifax Account Freez'd

MoneySaverLog

You bet!

If they identify fraud, they'll put a CIFAS marker on your file viewable by all the financial institutions. How you get rid of it I have no idea, suspect you'd have to contact CIFAS

dung_a82

Basically, if you deposit a large amount of cash and transfer / withdraw those nearly in the same day (or worse, transfer it to other country), your account will be flagged for money laundering. And when you get flagged, that is where the stupid things happen, especially when you are foreigners. The banks just simply forget that lots of foreign students bring a large amount of cash in UK to pay for tution fee and living costs. And they are just ABC machines. Meanwhile, my friend used to do business on his personal account for years and nothing happens (around £8K going in the account every month, mostly online). However, it is very unlikely that they will keep your money unless they have strong evidence that you commit fraud, money laundering or they received freezing request from the authority.

If you do not have CCJ and you got rejected by Barclays for basic cash account, the only reason would be as a foreign student, you have absolutely no traceable record here, no voting, no credit and so on. Meanwhile, an unwritten rule that banks are currently limiting international students from having more than 1 bank account. Also, if you are applying online, sometimes you got refused stupidly. I had credit card with HBOS for years and when applying for Halifax reward account (same group), I got refused. Went to branch and opened it in no time with absolutely no problem, the customer representative just laughed blaming the system lol. It is worth a try to pop into a branch and ask them you would like to switch (that you will close the other account ...). Please take a note that international student would be very difficult to get hold of more than 1 high street bank account. I have 3 though lol.