Barclays Account "Under Review"

zaax

As someone above said, Anti money laundering Laws, all banks do this. Its the government fault - Write to your MP

System

What's the US arm of HSBC allowing Mexican drug cartels to deposit shedloads of dollar bills got to do with this?

The person pulling the cheque would see it's drawn on a Barclays account. On closer inspection would be able to see that it's issued by Barclaycard and obtain the reason for it's issue.

Case closed or at least it should be!

Thrugelmir wrote: »

The transaction will be abnormal. In relation to normal activity.

HSBC got hit with a $1.9 billion fine in 2013. So banks take matters seriously. If they didn't it would defeat the whole object of the regulations. It's the world we now live in. The price that's paid for freedom of movement of capital across borders etc.

giblet10

Heng_Leng wrote: »

What's the US arm of HSBC allowing Mexican drug cartels to deposit shedloads of dollar bills got to do with this?

The person pulling the cheque would see it's drawn on a Barclays account. On closer inspection would be able to see that it's issued by Barclaycard and obtain the reason for it's issue.

Case closed or at least it should be!

I quite agree. But due to stupid draconian methods of enforcing anti-money laundering rules in the UK, we are now all deemed potential Mexican drug king pins.

When I worked for a bank we were told not to tip off our suspicion - in fact it was (still is) a crime in itself. But yet here we are freezing people's account - which surely is tipping off suspicion?

meer53

Heng_Leng wrote: »

What's the US arm of HSBC allowing Mexican drug cartels to deposit shedloads of dollar bills got to do with this?

The person pulling the cheque would see it's drawn on a Barclays account. On closer inspection would be able to see that it's issued by Barclaycard and obtain the reason for it's issue.

Case closed or at least it should be!

All banks are now ultra cautious as a result of HSBC's fine and the conditions now imposed on them. Hence the zealous AML regulation checks now.

There is no "person pulling the cheque" when it's paid in, it just appears as a credit. The "pulling of the cheque" will only be done once the freeze is in place.

delishjo

Hi,

Just thought I'd let everyone know how this matter was brought to a conclusion.

Over the weekend I went on LinkedIn and found a guy who was was very senior in Barclays Fraud Dept. I emailed him on Saturday evening and he emailed me back asking me to tell him the problem. We exchanged several emails over the weekend and he said that although it wasn't actually his remit, (I think he was corporate fraud), he would get it sorted first thing Monday morning. I didn't hold my breath.

In the meantime I had also found the email address for Antony Jenkins, Group Chief Exec and Ashok Vaswani, CEO of UK Retail & Business Banking and fired off an email to them.

11am on Monday a guy rang me from Barclays Complaints. He said the Fraud guy had been on to him first thing and asked him to get it sorted. He apologised profusely and said he had spoken to the Asst Branch Manager at my branch, the same guy I'd spoken to. When I put the cheque in the fast deposit machine the person who inputted it didn't recognise the Barclaycard sort code and account number on the cheque. They couldn't find it on the list they have of Barclays sort codes and account numbers so instead of just ringing Barclaycard and asking they flagged it up as a fraud case. Even when I bought the letter in from Barclaycard that had come with the cheque they still didn't ring Barclaycard.

As I pointed out to the complaints guy, I can't be the only one this has happened to and he said that Barclaycard are issuing up to 3,000 of these cheques per week and to date mine is the only one where there has been a problem and basically it was down to the branch. Not sure I believe that. Anyway, he had told the branch to represent the cheque that day, (so my suspicions were correct that the cheque had never left the branch) and that he would keep an eye on proceedings throughout the day and ensure it happened. He had made arrangements with the branch for me to go in and withdrawn a chunk of the money if I needed to before the cheque cleared on Friday. He also said that he would action a generous compensation payment in to my account that day. Which was great but I would have prefered it not to have happened in the first place.

Not long after I had spoken to him the Fraud guy got in touch to make sure everything had been sorted out. Later that day I got a phone call from Mr Jenkins and Mr Vaswani's team offering to sort things out if they were still not causing me a problem and again apologising profusely.

I pointed out to everyone I spoke to on Monday that the system stinks, that the majority of people this sort of thing happenens to are innocent like me and whilst I understood that fraud is potentially a criminal offence the lack of information given to the people under suspicion is woeful and causes huge amounts of unnecessary anxiety.

If nothing else I hope this sparks an internal review of practice in suspected fraud cases. I have also written to my MP highlighting this case.

Thanks again to all the people who offered practical, non-judgmental advice.

Cheers.

grumbler

This is just yet another proof that often (usually?) banks keep using AML as a smoke screen to hide their incompetence and inability to work efficiently, not are forced by AML to behave this way.

FireWyrm

Well, that was a wonderful result and I'm astonished Barclays moved so quickly and efficiently to rectify the issue. Enjoy your compensation and have a well deserved bottle of wine. I'll have to remember the LinkedIn trick, obviously if you can get to speak to a real person with some authority, doors open and things get done.

MABLE

FireWyrm wrote: »

Well, that was a wonderful result and I'm astonished Barclays moved so quickly and efficiently to rectify the issue. Enjoy your compensation and have a well deserved bottle of wine. I'll have to remember the LinkedIn trick, obviously if you can get to speak to a real person with some authority, doors open and things get done.

I normally find that if I have an issue I contact Barclays complaints and sort the problem out very quickly.

If the OP had gone down that route originally the issue would have been sorted out a lot quicker.

However an excellent result all the same.

delishjo

This last week has been a very interesting experience, especially with regard to the MSE forum. I love it when people like MABEL state the flipping obvious, as if the thought of making an official complaint hadn't crossed my tiny brain. I did make an official complaint on the Thursday when I discovered the problem and was tracking the progress of that complaint on the internet and just to let you know they finally rang me YESTERDAY to say they were now ready to look into my complaint. A FULL 30 hours AFTER it had been RESOLVED. But obviously MABEL I bow to your superior knowledge, superior attitude and superior intelligence.

May I draw various peoples' attention to the MSE forum site rules. I think you need to have a good read of them, if your superior brains will allow.

Please be nice to all MoneySavers : There's no such thing as a stupid question and, even if you disagree, courtesy helps.

Please be sensitive : This may be a web forum, but you're still talking to other human beings. Repeatedly or harshly saying someone's wrong, especially on boards like DebtFreeWannabe, Bankruptcy or Benefits, can lead to upset.

We're proud that many people whose financial problems exacerbate mental health issues seek help in the forum, but this means you may be berating someone who's clinically depressed. Please think twice before posting judgmental comments.

Don't feed the trolls : Sadly the web has a habit of throwing up a very small but vocal number of trolls, people who are nasty or contrary just to get a rise out of you.

meer53

delishjo wrote: »

This last week has been a very interesting experience, especially with regard to the MSE forum. I love it when people like MABEL state the flipping obvious, as if the thought of making an official complaint hadn't crossed my tiny brain. I did make an official complaint on the Thursday when I discovered the problem and was tracking the progress of that complaint on the internet and just to let you know they finally rang me YESTERDAY to say they were now ready to look into my complaint. A FULL 30 hours AFTER it had been RESOLVED. But obviously MABEL I bow to your superior knowledge, superior attitude and superior intelligence.

May I draw various peoples' attention to the MSE forum site rules. I think you need to have a good read of them, if your superior brains will allow.

Please be nice to all MoneySavers : There's no such thing as a stupid question and, even if you disagree, courtesy helps.

Please be sensitive : This may be a web forum, but you're still talking to other human beings. Repeatedly or harshly saying someone's wrong, especially on boards like DebtFreeWannabe, Bankruptcy or Benefits, can lead to upset.

We're proud that many people whose financial problems exacerbate mental health issues seek help in the forum, but this means you may be berating someone who's clinically depressed. Please think twice before posting judgmental comments.

Don't feed the trolls : Sadly the web has a habit of throwing up a very small but vocal number of trolls, people who are nasty or contrary just to get a rise out of you.

Being nice to people works both ways. You don't come across very well in some of your posts. Sarcasm doesn't go down well either. The MSE guidelines apply to you too.

To clarify, once you have made a complaint to your bank, they have up to 8 weeks to respond. Just because it was resolved sooner than this doesn't mean they weren't doing anything about it.