Virgin Money have frozen my savings account

MrCarrot

I have an ISA which I've been saving in to for the best part of 20 years. It's got a fair chunk of money in it (although not millions).


I transfer it to a different bank every couple of years or so to benefit from a better interest rate.


On this occassion I moved it to Virgin Money as it was listed as one of the top ISA's at the moment on MSE.


Since then, Virgin have frozen my account, and asked me to complete a "customer questionnaire" to prove where the funds came from (somewhat difficult with savings accumilated over 20 years).


I've since sent the questionnaire back and was told the account would be unfrozen within 24 hours.



A week and a half later I was told the account would then be unfrozen within 48 hours.


72 hours later and I'm told my account is still under review, and there is absolutely no timescale of when this "review" might be complete.


Anyone else experienced this and is there anything I can do other than wait an indefinite period of time (days, weeks, months, years?) for the bank to give me access to my funds?

MrCarrot

xpc wrote: »

You could try putting in a formal complaint to say that you have been told your account will be unfrozen on multiple occasions and you still have no access to your funds. This would then start the 8 week timer for their response before going to the FOS if it is still not resolved.

Thanks, I will do that. I have read that the FOS will just say that the bank is "fulfilling its duty." But I guess I've got few other options. If the bank want to do some kind of investigation, then fine. However I think it's unfair that they can't provide even a vague timescale. Needless to say I would never have moved the money if I knew in advance this would happen.

xylophone

Start with a formal, written complaint.

Biggus_Dickus

My wife has a good friend who works for a large financial institution and her job is to check out any account activity that is deemed suspicious. She once gave my wife a few ‘general’ insights into what she does.

I believe the Banks run algorithms that check accounts for a whole host of account activities,...some of which get flagged as ‘requiring investigation’.

It isn’t only large amounts that are investigated either;...sometimes very small, but regular payments to/from some sources raise suspicion.

However, what percentage of activity that is investigated actually turns out to be genuinely dodgy I have no idea.

OP, I’m not for one moment suggesting that any of your account activity is dodgy btw!

Vortigern

MrCarrot wrote: »

I have an ISA which I've been saving in to for the best part of 20 years. It's got a fair chunk of money in it (although not millions).

Since then, Virgin have frozen my account, and asked me to complete a "customer questionnaire" to prove where the funds came from (somewhat difficult with savings accumilated over 20 years).


I've since sent the questionnaire back ...

What exactly did you tell them?

If you'd tried to itemise all those savings accumulated over 20 years, they might try to verify the sources in some way.

I'd have thought it would be sufficient to say it's just previous years savings - and point out that it was an ISA transfer, with no new money added.

If there is new money added you might have to give a source for that.

Whenever I've opened a savings account with VM all I've had to do is tick boxes to indicate funds coming from salary/pension and from savings elsewhere.
,

atush

I just want to know why it is all in cash, and not S&S isas for at least part.

Biggus_Dickus

atush wrote: »

I just want to know why it is all in cash, and not S&S isas for at least part.

I could be wrong (I often am!) but I think the maximum that any individual can have accumulated in cash ISA’s since their inception in 1999 is about £140k plus interest.

MrCarrot

Vortigern wrote: »

What exactly did you tell them?

If you'd tried to itemise all those savings accumulated over 20 years, they might try to verify the sources in some way.

I'd have thought it would be sufficient to say it's just previous years savings - and point out that it was an ISA transfer, with no new money added.

If there is new money added you might have to give a source for that.

Whenever I've opened a savings account with VM all I've had to do is tick boxes to indicate funds coming from salary/pension and from savings elsewhere.
,

No, I didn't itemise everything, it'd be virtually impossible over that length of time. I told them it was from a previous ISA transfer (which they must have known) and provided a statement from the previous bank.

I also had to tell them my annual salary, who my employer is, how long I've worked there, etc. I didn't want to answer these questions but had little choice. Obviously if they'd have asked me all this prior to opening the account, I'd have never transferred the funds.

Voyager2002

MrCarrot wrote: »

Thanks, I will do that. I have read that the FOS will just say that the bank is "fulfilling its duty."

Yes, but your complaint is that the bank is taking far longer over "fulfilling its duty" than they promised you. After all, you gave reasonable answers to their questions and it seems that you are just waiting for someone to look at the form that you filled in.

londoninvestor

Biggus_Dickus wrote: »

I could be wrong (I often am!) but I think the maximum that any individual can have accumulated in cash ISA’s since their inception in 1999 is about £140k plus interest.

Although - you can now transfer from S&S to cash ISA, so there's no real limit on the amount some lucky person could theoretically have in a cash ISA.

MrCarrot

Voyager2002 wrote: »

Yes, but your complaint is that the bank is taking far longer over "fulfilling its duty" than they promised you. After all, you gave reasonable answers to their questions and it seems that you are just waiting for someone to look at the form that you filled in.

Yes good point. I went into a branch this afternoon. The person there said there was little he could do as it was an online account, but he was almost in disbelief. He made a few phone calls and eventually got told they were waiting for a manager to sign off my paperwork and that it'd take a couple of days. That's NOT what they told me this morning, they said it'd been transferred to a different department and there was no timescale for how long it might take.

I'm willing to bet in a "couple of days" time it still isn't sorted. What I don't know is whether they're completely incompetent, or whether they are just stringing me along. Anyway, over the next couple of days I'll draft my letter of complaint.