Barclays has Frozen my Account

yahhoo

Hi Everyone

Barclays has frozen my account for the last 2 days :mad:

Last Friday, I deposited £40k cheque into my current account.

Yesterday another 20k cheque was deposited into the same account.

I play poker and money comes into and out of my account regularly for the past few years. However, in last few weeks I have been winning a larger sum than normal. Both cheques were issued by large reputable casinos and I deposited them thinking this was the best method to cash in my winnings.

2 days ago, my account was suspended and I have been speaking to the fraud department for this time now. They started asking me where the cheques (1 cheque was from Barclays itself) came from and asked me for evidence. It was a struggle but I managed to obtain 1 letters from each casino to confirm my winnings in an official letter.

With the letters today, I went into a branch as instructed thinking this will resolve my problems so that I can have access to my funds. Having passed all information to the bank manager who was speaking to the fraud department, I have now been told my account is 'under review' and this can take up to 5 days.

I was under the impression that cheque was the best method for scenarios like this with large amount. I did ask the fraud department if it was better to get cash instead next time!

Can anyone explain what can happen next, am worried they will close my account. Also, I have credit card bills to pay soon with this account. Am hoping it will be resolved before 5 working days.

James

MrSilk

They are most likely carrying out money laundering checks at Head office, if the proof has been submitted as to where the money came from, you should be fine after the 5 days.

InsideInsurance

How is a cheque more safe than any other method? In fact there is more potentially more chance of a fraudulant cheque than there is of a fraudulant bank transfer.

There could be fraud checks going on but more likely its anti money laundering.

al25

Nothing to worry about. Perhaps two consecutive large cheque's triggered the fraud system.

mgdavid

with irregular largte sums sloshing around the account, it triggers the automated checks.
Tip - open another account with a different bank and keep, say, 2 weeks' living expenses in it as a backup.

Blaze_1

I had the same issue happen although for a much smaller sum. They said they did it because I could withdrew on the cheque before it reach "certainty" meaning the cheque has cleared and due to the amount being much larger then any transaction before they wanted to make sure it would clear.

Basically they think you have got someone to write you a cheque so you can take it out after 3 days and do a runner with the cash leaving your account overdrawn! They told me it was for my own security so I didn't get landed with the large bill but it was obvious it was the above otherwise, they would have simply put a block on the ability to withdrew against the cheque instead of freezing the account and causing me problems of none payments etc!

They did however allow me to take cleared funds out if I went into branch!

DCFC79

This is why having a secondaccount with an unrelated bank is useful.

agrinnall

Depositing those sorts of amounts in cash will be pretty likely to trigger ML checks almost every time, as there isn't the audit trail that a cheque provides, and if you were to keep on doing it I wouldn't be surprised to find them closing the account. So carry on getting paid by cheque, but expect to face occasional checks, and as others have said, keep a float elsewhere.

Archi_Bald

why not ask the casino to pay by bank transfer? You might still get calls from the bank, and they will with almost guaranteed certainty run some investigations in the background, but it's a lot less likely that your account gets locked. That is, unless the payment comes from some dubious outfit domiciled in some exotic island that doesn't have a gaming regulator, or a gaming regulator with the wrong sort of reputation.