Santander blocked my account

HeyYo786

Hi

I am new here and I hope someone could help me please. I recently opened a esaver account with Santander. But after opening an ISA account with Barclays, I decided to switch to them with my current account and decided to open a new saving account with them, due to the fact I prefer to keep all my money with one bank rather than have several. When I tried transfering my savings over from Santander, they blocked the transfer and then blocked my account. I rang them and they said it was due to unusual activity, where I made 3 large sum transfers from my previous account ( Nationwide only allow you to transfer a maximum of £10000 a time) to Santander and then 1 large transfer from Santander to Barclays. Santander say that is why the account has been blocked and transfer has been frozen. Someone from the fraud team is going to ring me the next working day.

Problem is, I shop around good deals with my savings when it comes to who offers the best interest and have been doing for a good 10 years. I am looking to buy a house and that is why I have gone for a 1st time buyer ISA account. I am now concerned about my savings and what will happen to them. Is this a common process amongst Santander or is it something I should seriously be worried about?

fwor

It's pretty much what you should expect - opening a new account and then shuffling relatively large amounts through it will (or should) always get you noticed.


Once they are happy that you're not money laundering or doing something else fraudulent it should have no long-term impact at all.

Shedman

As an aside, although you say that you like to keep all your accounts with one bank, it is probably more sensible to have a current account with at least two banks in case of issues with one of the banks (as seems to happen more and more frequently). As you've discovered having an account frozen can be very problematic, so having accounts at different banks means that hopefully you can always get access to some cash / pay bills etc.

HeyYo786

Thanks for the response. Do you guys know how long it will take for them to release the funds?

I had 1 extra current account which I left opened, but the bank shut it down after it being inactive for a year. Opening another is a good idea though.

Alexland

If you speak to the fraud team and satisfy their enquiries they could immediately unblock the account. As above always worth having current accounts and easy access savings with multiple unrelated financial institutions.