Lloyds and my wife the money launderer.

mr_sharma

Someone playing devil's advocate?

Shocker!

Those kind of people are the first to stamp their feet when something doesn't go their way (in my experience).

I'm with the OP, I would've done the same thing!

jennifernil

vacheron wrote: »

Yes, I am aware that Halifax are part of the Lloyds group, however Halifax is our main day-to-day joint account and so was the logical place to temporarily redirect the imminently failing direct debits in the limited time available until my wife got her new account sorted out.

In addition I have banked with Halifax since 1995 and have always found them to be exceptional before their recent takeover and have noticed no parent company influence since the takeover so I'm not going to tar them with the same brush.

Did she really need a new account of her own, why not just use your joint account for DDs and bills?

Or since you are already with Halifax, she could have opened a sole account with them.

We have accounts with both Lloyds and Halifax, not had any problems with either, but I can understand your annoyance. I would have been pretty mad if they had done that to me!

Making a mistake is one thing, but refusing to re-instate an account afterwards is very poor treatment.

Naf

vacheron wrote: »

they force closed her account

Ooooooh, does Darth Vader work for them (perfectly believable). Force closure, like force lightening, or force jump? :-P

Lokolo wrote: »

You will find all banks are very harsh on money laundering, .

BUT THERE WAS NO MONEY LAUNDERING; AND THE BANK ACCEPTED AND ADMITTED IT!!!!
A smaller, local bank can give a mich more personal service, and use a much more common sense approach. At the very least Lloyds shouldn't have banned her completely. Even if the system is set up in such a crazy way that the account closures could not be reversed, they should have been able to reopen new ones straight away.
Unfortunately being as big as they are, they cannot give any kind of a personal service, or really take an individual approach on things like this: one blanket policy applies.
Im waiting/hoping for proper local banks (like the Bank of Dave) to catch on and open up in more places.

vacheron

jennifernil wrote: »

Did she really need a new account of her own, why not just use your joint account for DDs and bills?

Or since you are already with Halifax, she could have opened a sole account with them.

It is true that she doesn't "Need" a new account, however it does give a bit of independence and privacy... what if she wants to book a surprise for us, or buy a birthday/Christmas present for me without the cost and details showing up for all to see?

Opening an account with Halifax is an option, however we are concerned that we will have all our eggs in one basket in the event that a similar thing happens again.

In hindsight of recent events, I actually think that the argument that she should have a new account with a completely different institution is stronger now than it was before as we have seen what they are prepared to do to when something sets their alarm bells ringing.

Had we not had different accounts with different banks this time, we would have had serious problems rather than just an annoying inconvenience. (My company would not have been able to pay me for starters!)

vacheron

Takeaway_Addict wrote: »

They made a mistake, it was annoying but you are over reacting tbf

I'm not sure we "reacted" at all to be honest (apart form venting on here for a bit of lively discussion and as a warning to others).

We arranged an appointment at the branch and provided evidence of her innocence as their letter requested. They completely accepted and agreed that she was innocent and the payments were perfectly in order but her cards were still taken from her and her accounts were closed. They then handed the money from her current account to her as cash in an envelope. We received a genuine apology from the customer services manager who was powerless to do anything other than what he was told from above and sent on our way.
We were then left to find her a new account from another provider in the hope they haven't marked her as a criminal on any shared databases. At the time of writing we haven't even sent a letter of compliant.

I'd be interested to hear how you could have reacted less if you were in our situation?

Azari

vacheron wrote: »

I'm not sure we "reacted" at all to be honest (apart form venting on here for a bit of lively discussion and as a warning to others).

We arranged an appointment at the branch and provided evidence of her innocence as their letter requested. They completely accepted and agreed that she was innocent and the payments were perfectly in order but her cards were still taken from her and her accounts were closed. They then handed the money from her current account to her as cash in an envelope. We received a genuine apology from the customer services manager who was powerless to do anything other than what he was told from above and sent on our way.
We were then left to find her a new account from another provider in the hope they haven't marked her as a criminal on any shared databases. At the time of writing we haven't even sent a letter of compliant.

I'd be interested to hear how you could have reacted less if you were in our situation?

I'm think Takeaway_Addict was trolling.

No one could seriously believe that complaining about all your financial transactions being blocked with virtually no notice was not worthy of a serious vent. (I think you were pretty restrained, here, all things considered.)

I'm guessing the 'you won the bet' response someone made earlier was meant to imply that he'd won some sort of 'see who can make the stupidest post' bet.

vacheron

Azari wrote: »

I'm think Takeaway_Addict was trolling.

No one could seriously believe that complaining about all your financial transactions being blocked with virtually no notice was not worthy of a serious vent. (I think you were pretty restrained, here, all things considered.)

I'm guessing the 'you won the bet' response someone made earlier was meant to imply that he'd won some sort of 'see who can make the stupidest post' bet.

That was my first thought too, however with his high (by my standard at least) post count and thanks rating, I gave him/her the benefit of the doubt that perhaps they had misread something.

(It seems to have taken me a not inconsiderable effort to get up to 150 posts, no idea how so many people seem to make it effortlessly into the thousands),

Oldfatgrumpy

Dave_C wrote: »

How on earth this crowd of cowboys retain customers is beyond me.

Dave

Given their proven and consistent levels of incompetence and sharp practices, what has me puzzled is how they've retained a banking licence.

Takeaway_Addict

My point about over reacting was the fact you said you closed all your accounts with them.

Maybe I am wrong on this one

vacheron

Takeaway_Addict wrote: »

My point about over reacting was the fact you said you closed all your accounts with them.

Maybe I am wrong on this one

Aah, ok.

Yes, you must have misread. They closed all of her accounts. We didn't have any say in the matter.