First Direct

bluesky2007

Hi there, looking for some advice on an issue we have with First Direct.

At the beginning of April my husband had some calls allegedly from First Direct which we found suspicious. We called the bank and they cancelled the account and locked him out of his as they too were suspicious of the calls, all well and good and absolutely the correct actions to take.
However we are now 6 weeks later and his access has not been restored and we have not had access to his last two months salary. They tell us they are protecting us, which we get, but we have not had access to our money for 6 weeks. No one can give us a straight answer why, and they only answer is they are protecting us. All well and good but we are desperate as we cannot pay any bills and our overdraft is now at the limit. Worst of all is that we are getting very stressed calling several times a day and are told every single time that money is being transfered in an hour/ by 6pm/ or by tomorrow morning. What I dont understand is why they can't transfer the money, and also why they keep lying and telling us it is being sorted when it clearly isnt , its all very suspicious. Im not sure how long they expect us to continue with no money and why they cant transfer the balance out of the account instantly.

We have escalated but are just getting absolutely nowhere. We have now been to the ombudsman and are considering the police. Any advice would be appreciated

JuicyJesus

The police cannot help and the Ombudsman cannot help right now. No crime has been committed and going to the FOS requires you to have made a formal complaint to First Direct first and for them to have issued a final response or taken more than 8 weeks to issue one.

What I'm confused about is why your lack of telephone access means you cannot pay bills and such. You must have been able to take money out, as you say the overdraft is at its limit, and you now want to transfer money? From where? To where?

I'm just very confused by the whole post. I'm not sure we're getting the full story. In any event, my only real suggestion would be to make a formal complaint.

rb10

As well as JuicyJesus's comments, if the past two months' salaries are not available, I would suggest opening a new account elsewhere (if you don't already have one as a backup account), and getting the salary paid in there instead.

This can be done in a very short space of time - opening a new account only takes 10 minutes.

bluesky2007

Thank you for your response and sorry you are correct, its not totally clear. Sometimes when you are in the middle of something...
The overdraft is on our joint account where most of the bills get paid, anything from my husbands account hasn't been paid for two months as and they wont / or let us pay anything or transfer money out of my husbands account which has the two months money. They have effectively ring fenced the accounts and will not let us view or access it. They have told us they have set up a new account for my husband , but again have not/will not transfer the money into it, despite saying they will constantly nor have they issue a debit card for the account or re established my husbands internet.
I appreciate the advice and we have started to keep a log and will write up a complaint tomorrow morning, but still dont understand what is going on. We have also asked them if there is something else to the story, but cant get anything out of them.

anoncol

Have you opened a new account for your husbands salary to be paid into?

The_pc_tech

Is your bill account also with them or with another bank?

Have you told them their actions are causing you hardship?

If the bill account is with them then they are causing a problem for themselves as I would be making it clear you have no intention of paying any unauthorised overdraft fees as this is of their own making.

I'm not clear as to why they haven't just changed the numbers unless your husband's account details have now been exploited for some illegal activity which they won't be at liberty to tell you about.

bluesky2007

Hi, yes the bill account is with them, and they tell us they have opened a new account, although transferring into the joint would be easiest as we both have valid debit cards for that account. We have taken action to get next months salary into a new account, and we have tried several times a day to get them to transfer the balance into our joint /bill account, with no success. We have continually told them it is causing us hardship and they have said they will compensate us for any costs and charges, but we just want them to transfer our cash. Can you explain your last paragraph more The PC Tech please? as they we really cant get any kind of explanation from them, and normally I would say FD customer service is excellent. Also if they cant transfer the money from this account, won't they have provisions for this issue and they cant transfer the balance from elsewhere? They also will not even give us a statement or confirm the balance. its like two months salary has fallen down a black hole!

meer53

The only reason for not allowing you access to your money and for not telling you why is a suspicion of money laundering. If it is, they aren't allowed to tell you anything at all, tipping off is an offence which carries a possible prison sentence.

pqrdef

Or, money has gone missing and they're looking for a way to pin it on your husband, to recover their losses. They won't let his salary go, even though it's obviously not fraudulent or proceeds of crime or part of any money-laundering scheme, because they want to keep it.

pqrdef

And no, they aren't protecting you. They've got no interest in protecting anybody except themselves.

There's nothing a bank will do to stop you being conned, and if you were, you'd stand your own losses and get no help from the bank. Protecting you isn't in their business model. For instance, they won't help you check the ID of somebody who pays you money, although they could.

But if money goes missing from your account, that's the bank's problem not yours. They aren't being nice to you by putting it back - they have to put it back because they should never have taken it out. It was never your loss. You weren't the victim of the fraud, they were. You weren't there.

Of course you do have some obligation to protect the bank against misuse of your identity, and that's what they try to get you on.

JuicyJesus

Impressive there pqrdef, a response completely devoid of anything approaching facts.

Banks do not withhold legitimate customer monies to retrieve money they have paid out because of fraud against that same customer. Full stop. Period. If they didn't want to pay out or had good reason not to then they wouldn't have done so.