Santander trying to steal £14,200 from me

Azelphur

Hi folks, I'm having a bit of a predicament with Santander.

I made a trade with someone online for £7,200. Sent them the goods, the person is now trying to perform charge back fraud on me.

As a result of this, Santander has said that they are taking every penny I own, to the sum of £14,200 and holding it indefinitely until I can get written proof from this person that I am legitimately entitled to the funds. This obviously isn't going to happen as the person who sent the funds is likely a fraudster.

I have spoken to the financial ombudsman who has filed a complaint, but he says this will take 8 weeks to resolve

I have filed a fraud report via actionfraud

Meanwhile, I have very little money, £600 in a second bank account and some petty cash. My tenancy ends on the 25th may, and I had a new flat ready to pay the deposit on tomorrow. If I can't get this resolved soon I will be sofa surfing and obviously no income, as my primary source of income is trading.

grumbler

Chargeback works for debit/credit card payments only, not for bank transfers.
If it was a bank transfer Santander has no rights to "take" (freeze in fact) the funds unless they suspect you in money laundering or the funds you received were proceeds of some fraud/crime.

Azelphur

Yea, I may well be suspected of money laundering due to the amount of trading I do, I am of course not money laundering, however.

They say that the person who sent the money is disputing the payment (ala chargeback fraud) and that is why they are freezing all my money

grumbler

Azelphur wrote: »

They say that the person who sent the money is disputing the payment (ala chargeback fraud) and that is why they are freezing all my money

This is rubbish. If the person is just disputing it they can only ask you to give the money back. You don't have to prove anything unless 'the person' takes you to a court.

There is no anything "ala".

mgdavid

I don't think we have the whole story in simple straightforward language yet, do we?

Azelphur

mgdavid wrote: »

I don't think we have the whole story in simple straightforward language yet, do we?

Let me know if there's anything you'd like me to elaborate on, I thought I was pretty clear in my original post.

fiesta04

How does £7200 become £14200 being held???

F4

Azelphur

fiesta04 wrote: »

How does £7200 become £14200 being held???

F4

14,200 is my total account balance, because of the fraudulent transaction they have froze ALL of my money, not just the one transaction.

chili1496

ok I am curious of what you sold them for the sum of £7,200, how did they pay, ie transfer,paypal, card and do you have proof they actually received the goods you sent them? do they live in the same country as you?

Azelphur

chili1496 wrote: »

ok I am curious of what you sold them for the sum of £7,200

80 bitcoins

chili1496 wrote: »

how did they pay, ie transfer,paypal,card

Bank transfer

chili1496 wrote: »

do you have proof they actually received the goods you sent them?

Yes it was all handled by an escrow site, so I have the receipt in my transaction history, and the bitcoin transaction ID of him withdrawing the bitcoins from the escrow site (bitbargain.co.uk)

chili1496 wrote: »

do they live in the same country as you?

Not sure, I got the IP address for the guy and it geolocates to netherlands, but that doesn't really mean a lot (could be a proxy)

RetiredInThailand

Azelphur wrote: »

As a result of this, Santander has said that they are taking every penny I own, to the sum of £14,200 and holding it indefinitely until I can get written proof from this person that I am legitimately entitled to the funds.

Sounds to me like they suspect you of money-laundering or some other sort of dodgy practice. I see no other reason why they would block all your funds and ask you to prove where they came from.

Is this a proper business account or are you just using a personal account for business? They probably wont like it if you are doing the latter.