First Direct closed my account without warning

kyusho

Hi All,

I recently opened a First Direct account. I was accepted and I was immediately sent my cheque book and debit card and welcome pack. However, no less than seven days later I received a letter stating that they had closed my account with no explanation or warning. When I phoned up they said that they could not tell me why they had done this, and that I was never elegible for an account and my debit card and welcome back were sent in error.

I have read their terms and conditions and I am sure they are in breach of these- no where does it say that they can cancel my account. Where do I stand :mad: ?

kyusho

Also I should add a strange even that took place in between. I applied for a credit card and I received a letter from them stating that they believe someone was trying to impersonate me and that they had registered my details with CIFAS- even though it was actually me applying not an impersonation. This happened after I opened my First Direct account, do you think they saw the CIFAS and subsequently closed my account?!

grumbler

kyusho wrote: »

I have read their terms and conditions and I am sure they are in breach of these- no where does it say that they can cancel my account. Where do I stand :mad: ?

I am pretty sure that it does say that they can close it without any reason.
Also I am pretty sure that it says that they have to give you an advance notice - unless they have really good reasons (like fraud) for closing it immediately. In this respect I think they did breach the T&C, but this sort of arrogance it's getting more and more common for banks:
Lloyds closed my account now holding funds
Barclays account closure after 2 days.
Barclays
Barclays - am I being accused of fraud?!

Unless they caused you significant inconvenience by their arrogant actions, I think it's better just to vote with your feet. Do your really want to stay with them?

That said, it's worth checking your credit files thoroughly and what information CIFAS hold on you.

Also, if they erroneously reported something to CIFAS, it's worth complaining, getting to the bottom of this and demanding this record to be removed.

colsten

grumbler wrote: »

this sort of arrogance it's getting more and more common for banks

You and I and everyone else can read the account of one party. We have no means of verifying the account that this one party gives. We also have no means to hear the other side of the story, and we generally lack information about a whole lot of facts pertaining to these account closures.

In the light of these facts, it's a bit premature to call banks arrogant for closing people's accounts just because someone posted on MSE that their account has been closed.

grumbler

Here we always have only one side of the story and have to assume that the story isn't a lie and take the facts at the face value unless there are obvious contradictions and inconsistencies. This is absolutely normal.

Interestingly, different people keep telling similar stories. Is this a conspiracy to smear our banks?

Re 'premature', see, for instance, http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/arti...cent-customers

Unfortunately, banking is a unique area where "innocent until proven guilty" principle is being routinely ignored. The laws are imperfect, regulators are toothless and some banks take advantage of this. Is it not arrogance?

For this particular story the facts are pretty clear and I don't see any reason for assuming that the OP told lies:

• The account was fully opened.
• In a week it was suddenly closed without any advance notice required by the T&C and without any explanation.
• Later the OP was told that the reason was that he wasn't eligible for this account and the bank made an error when opening it.

If the bank !!!!ed up they have to admit this and close it correctly following their own T&C.

If they accuse the OP of fraud there is no any reason for keeping this secret and not making some effort to make sure that the accusation isn't an error before reporting this to CIFAS.

kyusho

So it sounds like it could have something to do with wrongly being put on CIFAS? I think they put me on this because I applied for a credit card at a new address I recently moved to having spent alongtime at another one which they sent the CIFAS letter to!

I'm going to phone them up tomorrow and ask them what the hell they're doing and request they remove this record. Should I complain to the financial ombudsman too given my current account has been closed for no reason?

Another theory I have is perhaps they didn't want to pay me the £125 switching bonus :mad:

kyusho

Hi all, an update:

-I checked my credit file and t was extremely strong and had a very high rating, but there was a CIFAS registered.
-I phoned up the company that registered the CIFAS and said that I wished to log this as a formal complaint, given that it was a legitimate application of my own and had caused me to be refused a bank account elsewhere
-The company who issued the CIFAS removed the record, and they also agreed to pay me a compensatory amount of one months overdraft interest and charges.
-I am now going to phone up First Direct again and ask them to reopen the account.. do you think they will now the CIFAS is removed?

DCFC79

You can ask, I have no idea if they will do, explain the CIFAS mark is now removed. Did you explain the application for a CC was actually you.

pmduk

I'm somewhat surprised you've managed to get all this done in the 16 hours since you raised the query.

However, once the CRAs have updated their records you can ask First Direct.

meer53

kyusho wrote: »

Hi all, an update:

-I checked my credit file and t was extremely strong and had a very high rating, but there was a CIFAS registered.
-I phoned up the company that registered the CIFAS and said that I wished to log this as a formal complaint, given that it was a legitimate application of my own and had caused me to be refused a bank account elsewhere
-The company who issued the CIFAS removed the record, and they also agreed to pay me a compensatory amount of one months overdraft interest and charges.
-I am now going to phone up First Direct again and ask them to reopen the account.. do you think they will now the CIFAS is removed?

You'll probably have to wait until your credit file has been updated before trying to reapply. It's not going to happen straight away.

giblet10

Did CIFAS tell you what type of CIFAS marker was present? e.g. 'protective registration', 'ID fraud' etc

If its anything other than application fraud I would have thought FD would try to verify you before simply closing your account.

One of these days the banks will be forced to admit why they close peoples accounts. They're more secretive than the NSA!