Bank account frozen - fraud

matty1286

Hi there - in a bit of a horrendous situation and all advice would be gratefully received.

To be as concise as possible without waffling:

My Halifax current a/c has been frozen, because it transpires a cheque that I paid in has come from a dubious source and I am told has been classified as a 'fraud cheque'.

The cheque payment originated from payment for some household goods which I advertised locally. I accepted cheque payment from the interested party, but because of the rather casual nature of the sale I did not keep a record of their details etc etc (stupid naivety on my part - the items were sold in the process of a house move which was rather stressful, meaning I was a bit pre-occupied).

I banked the cheque, I mentally noted at the time that the buyer had intialled an amendment made to my name as payee, but thought this was considered fine given it had been initalled etc.

Anyhow...........around three days later I attempt to make a card payment from my account (a simple £5.00 phone top-up) only to find in 'declined by my bank'. I cannot understand this, given that I know for a fact funds are available.

I pop into my branch to find out what on earth is going on, to find that my account has been frozen because fraud has been flagged up. I ask how I can recify this situation, to which I am asked if I can provide details of the individual who paid me this cheque - perfectly understandable request but one that I will be struggling to answer given the nature of the transaction described above.

I completely understand I have been naive/foolish to accept payment without being more careful - however I wondered if I could get advice on how I should go about rectifying the sitaution and how banks treat cases such as these.

Many thanks in advance

matt

JuicyJesus

How much were these goods worth...?

All you can do is provide as much information as you can. Explain the above, maybe show them printouts of emails or copies of the ad if there were any. If you don't know anything, say so.

Caladan

Explain exactly what happened to the Fraud department (or ask the branch to call the fraud department whilst you're there).

In a 'first offence' situation you should be fine as long as the explanation makes sense.

Edit: It's all a bit pants that you have to go through this, especially if you're innocent. In future be really careful with altered cheques unless you know the person issuing it. As an aside, in my experience alterations are only accepted with full signatures next to them rather than initials.

Wheres_My_Cashback

Nonsense !

the_insider

Caladan wrote: »

Edit: It's all a bit pants that you have to go through this, especially if you're innocent.

What on earth does that mean?! Would it be pants for an innocent party to have to help the bank identify a fraudster if it was your cheque that had been tampered with??

Caladan

Wheres_My_Cashback wrote: »

Nonsense !

What is? Please try to make a constructive contribution

Caladan

the_insider wrote: »

What on earth does that mean?! Would it be pants for an innocent party to have to help the bank identify a fraudster if it was your cheque that had been tampered with??

Yes it would be pants. Not wrong, not excessive and certainly not unreasonable, but still pants. If I was the victim of fraud, having to spend even more of my time to help solve the issue, for example by appearing in court, would still be pants (but the right thing to do, and a good thing to do, and something I absolutely would do).

I may be reading this wrong so I'll clarify what I meant in my other post:

It's pants that an innocent party has to go through the hassle of proving they're not 'in on it' by explaining the situation etc. They've done nothing wrong and don't deserve the problems it can cause, such as those detailed in this thread.

I don't disagree with the banks actions at all - Preventing criminals from profiting from their crimes is far more important than protecting consumers from the hoops they have to jump through to prove innocence (I know some people will disagree with me here, but as I've said before - Criminals are by definition not the best of people, and if anyone, at any point, can reduce or eliminate their gains then it's worth it in my opinion).

Edit: To clarify further - When I use the term 'pants' you can interchange it with 'a right pain in the backside.'

dalesrider

I find it strange that they have frozen the account because you paid in a cheque that has been returned as Payment stopped theft reported.
usually this would relate to your account not getting the funds from the cheque.
They may ask who, what, where & why about the cheque.

But you let goods go on the basis of a cheque received from a unknown 3rd party......
How much was it for?