Banned from banking in the UK? Help!

Jonathan1983

Hi,

Last year both my accounts where closed by Santander without explanation or warning.

In the weeks prior I had for sale on Gumtree a very expensive set binoculars (roughly £900) I was contacted by a guy in London who paid a £60 deposit into my basic bank account with my other account being an instant account with Visa card etc. A couple of weeks went by with no contact and then out of the blue my accounts where closed and I had to visit my branch to collect the balance in cash. The manager of the branch who knows me due to the years I have been banking there said there is nothing she could do to help me.

Fast forward to last week I have been a year without an account and opened with Barcleys, received debit card, online banking etc. Today I have received a letter saying my account has been closed and I cannot access anything online.

I'm pulling my hair out, I'm in full time employment and have never been arrested or broken the law let alone commited fraud. It's really depressing, I can't book anything online, pay direct debits and have cash savings I need to be safe. I am scared to apply anywhere else as I don't want to be rejected by every bank in the UK.

Any advice would be appreciated

John

HappyMJ

Apply for your credit report and see if there is a CIFAS marker on it.

puk999

Jonathan1983 wrote: »

Any advice would be appreciated

Don't hand over the binoculars until the remaining roughly £840 has been paid to you.

Jonathan1983

What should I do if there is a CIFAS marker on there?

Even accessing my credit report is a pain without a debit card.

I still own the binoculars, either the buyer changed his mind and didn't want to contact me a rather try and claim his deposit back or it was just a scam from the start.

Jonathan

gunsandbanjos

HappyMJ wrote: »

Apply for your credit report and see if there is a CIFAS marker on it.

Fraud markers don't show on the credit report from the CRAs. You need to do a SAR to CIFAS.

GingerBob_3

puk999 wrote: »

Don't hand over the binoculars until the remaining roughly £840 has been paid to you.

Stupid Response Alert

xylophone

I'm in full time employment

How is your salary paid?

GingerBob_3

I think there are moves to take the banks to task on this sort of outrage. The idea is to place a social responsibility on them to provide bank accounts as a right to people. This will, of course, grate badly with them, but hopefully something will come of it.


As to your predicament, yes hit the scum at CIFAS with a SAR. You may then be able to determine who has put you on the blacklist, and why. Maybe if it's malicious you could have some sort of legal redress.


It's interesting that the establishment bang on about identity theft, but this type of issue can only drive people towards it (not that I'm suggesting the OP does anything of the sort).

pmduk

GingerBob wrote: »

As to your predicament, yes hit the scum at CIFAS with a SAR. You may then be able to determine who has put you on the blacklist, and why. Maybe if it's malicious you could have some sort of legal redress.

You describe them as scum, why? They don't create the markers, just list them. If CIFAS didn't exist there'd be even more fraud than there is now. The OP needs to investigate why the CIFAS marker exists and take the problem from there.

GingerBob_3

pmduk wrote: »

You describe them as scum, why? They don't create the markers, just list them. If CIFAS didn't exist there'd be even more fraud than there is now. The OP needs to investigate why the CIFAS marker exists and take the problem from there.

They are scum. They facilitate a database of rumour, hearsay and conjecture, the mistakes on which cause misery to a large number of people, as evidenced in part by the complaints here.

tom222

What makes you think the binoculars have anything to do with the account closure? Doesn't seem to have any relevance to me?