Bank account closed- and they are NOT RETURNING MY MONEY

brianposter

mcplums wrote: »

Yes that is what the FOS said.

In that case I would suggest someone needs to look into Fidors advertising. "Full UK current account" but nothing to do with UK financial authorities, is clearly misleading.

masonic

brianposter wrote: »

You can write what you like into a contract. That does not put the matter outside the local law (although it might restrict your rights).

No, it could not override any statutory rights the OP has here, but it does add complexity to the case, such that it is likely to go beyond the scope of a simple online moneyclaim, for example.

Thrugelmir

mcplums wrote: »

I'm selling bitcoins to one person and then rebuying them at a slightly lower price from someone else.

Are the buyers and sellers in someway connected , unbeknown to you. Exploiting your naiveitivity. Free lunches aren't normally that easy to find as a business model.

eskbanker

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Exploiting your naiveitivity.

Is this a tendency to be particularly trusting and uncritical at Christmas time?

mcplums

@johnnygee2 thank you for your responses, they are very helpful.

jonnygee2 wrote: »

If you are lucky you will never find out anymore about it. If you are unlucky you will hear more about it in due course!

There is no way to press for more information unfortunately. The bank will not tell you any more about whats going on.

Ok, but then what's to stop a bank just closing someone's account, steal their money and claim money laundering? There has to be some way customers are protected from this. Now I don't think that's what Fidor are doing, but at the same time I don't think they actually have evidence of money laundering (I grant the possibility of course, it just seems extremely unlikely, given the facts).

FYI, on a previous occasion with a different bank, I sold £5k of bitcoin to someone, and the next day he (or the real owner- I do not know if he was scamming or not) rang up his bank and claimed his account was hacked and to reverse the payment. This, I think, would constitute money laundering? Since if his account was hacked then it was a fraudulent transaction and therefore the proceeds of crime? The reason I bring this up is that in this instance, the bank immediately contacted me- I was able to show them evidence that the customer had passed ID checks and I'd done everything reasonable to prevent fraud, and the bank sided with me and refused to reverse the payment. It strikes me that this is how such cases should be handled- perhaps this is why I'm so annoyed with Fidor as they are doing the exact opposite- not giving me my money back and giving me zero information. Now, you say that banks are legally not allowed to discuss money laundering with affected customers so maybe in this instance it wasn't actually money laundering?

jonnygee2 wrote: »

By the way - while on the subject - you keep saying you do KYC checks. Do you have an explicit legal agreement in place with your clients which gives you consent to store and process their data? Passports and ID are considered highly sensitive / high risk information.

And whatever you do, do not go around offering to send your KYC checks across to banks or sending them to external verification companies without explicit consent and contracts on both sides - they would almost have to report it as a data leak and you would face huge fines - your activity would fall under GDPR rules. The only people you can provide them to are the police.

Thank you for the information. I was partly aware of this but hadn't given it much thought. Fortunately I do not actually collect IDs myself, they are just required as part of the registration process on the site(s) I sell on.

You mention legal agreement though- on localbitcoins.com it is common for sellers to request ID from buyers on each specific trade- without any legal agreements or such. Is that somewhat suspect, in your opinion?

mcplums

Re. small claims- it sounds like I might as well give it a shot- nothing to lose.

mcplums

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Are the buyers and sellers in someway connected , unbeknown to you. Exploiting your naiveitivity. Free lunches aren't normally that easy to find as a business model.

The sell is in GBP the rebuy is in EUR. People who buy are paying a premium to not have to convert their GBP to EUR, and for instant trades (EUR transfers take like 1 business day).

mcplums

masonic wrote: »

What has Fidor actually stated regarding the account and funds?

This is the full text of their letter to me

"
Account Closure following a breach of the General Terms and Conditions of Fidor
Bank AG. Account Number XX.
Dear XX,
This is to inform you about the closure of your Fidor Smart Current Account with
Account Number XX.
The account would be closed on XX and until then, the account will
remain locked. Also there will be no payout of any balance on this account.
"

When I sent an email asking for more information they said "On the instructions of our legal/compliance department, we are unable to share further details with you about this account."

IanManc

mcplums wrote: »

Re. small claims- it sounds like I might as well give it a shot- nothing to lose.

I agree with Masonic that this is a non-starter.

The contract with the bank - to which you are a party and to which you agreed - excludes the jurisdiction of UK courts in a term which provides that German law applies to disputes between the parties.

A contractual term which determines the legal jurisdiction which applies to the contract is an ordinary and normal thing to be present in an international contract, and in order to commence proceedings in one of the UK jurisdictions you would have to establish before the court why the term was unlawful or did not apply in your circumstances.

As it is an explicit term in the contract to which you're a party to and it is you who wishes to have it struck down, then it is up to you to convince the court why the term should be struck down, and then to show why a UK court had jurisdiction.

The bank would simply respond to any commencement of proceedings by relying on the contract, and the court would not begin to look at any other issues in your case until the jurisdiction one was settled.

Unless you have grounds to convince a court in the UK that German courts do not in fact have jurisdiction when the contract says they do, and grounds also to convince the court that a UK court has jurisdiction despite the explicit contract term, then what you have to lose is a wasted and unrecoverable fee that you would pay to the UK court to start the proceedings, plus your own legal costs in pursuing the case unless you do it yourself, plus the legal costs of the bank in disputing your claim should the court award costs.

You've not given any grounds for believing that the term in the contract should be struck down, so unless you can find some compelling ones then you won't win the argument.

masonic

mcplums wrote: »

This is the full text of their letter to me

"
Account Closure following a breach of the General Terms and Conditions of Fidor
Bank AG. Account Number XX.
Dear XX,
This is to inform you about the closure of your Fidor Smart Current Account with
Account Number XX.
The account would be closed on XX and until then, the account will
remain locked. Also there will be no payout of any balance on this account.
"

When I sent an email asking for more information they said "On the instructions of our legal/compliance department, we are unable to share further details with you about this account."

Seems highly likely to be AML-related. You could try sending them a Subject Access Request, but they could lawfully refuse to send you any information relating to a Suspicious Activity Report they may have made.

Re. small claims- it sounds like I might as well give it a shot- nothing to lose.

If you want to throw good money after bad, then by all means. But it is likely to get thrown out fairly swiftly. Are you prepared to incur the expenses of filing a claim, attending the hearing and preparing your case?

What exactly are you going to argue? Are you going to get legal advice, or just familiarise yourself with the relevant legislation and represent yourself?

For the avoidance of doubt you have no statutory right in the UK to be informed about, or receive the proceeds of, transactions connected with money laundering or other financial crime.