Advice needed - Barclays took money from my accounts and froze them

Thrugelmir

plewis00 wrote: »

As I said, PayPal seems to be far better as a company to deal with,

As a long term seller on Ebay. I would disagree. Complete nightmare to deal with. The reality is that there's people out there who know how to play the system to their advantage.

plewis00

Thrugelmir wrote: »

As a long term seller on Ebay. I would disagree. Complete nightmare to deal with. The reality is that there's people out there who know how to play the system to their advantage.

I've been on eBay since 1999 and since PayPal broke away from eBay clutches in 2015, I have to say they have been nothing but professional and excellent - we do have a merchant account with them but you get a UK-based call and email centre to work with and as long as you follow their policies (ship to confirmed address, etc.) we have never lost out when someone has tried to defraud us.

But yes, I'd agree on that people know how to work the system. Ebay is the easiest to cheat though - abuse returns and send back whatever you like using the tracking number supplied being the most common one...

eskbanker

plewis00 wrote: »

There's a lot of misinformation out there. Even on these forums people say the payments can't be reversed!

There's plenty of misinformation on these forums, as with any such public environment where anyone can post.

You've made statements in this thread that are unlikely to be factual and I've certainly made my share of mistakes on here (in other threads!), so, despite comments being made in good faith by most posters, 'trust but verify' isn't a bad maxim for forum posts (and high-value online sales too....).

born_again

plewis00 wrote: »

There's a lot of misinformation out there. Even on these forums people say the payments can't be reversed!

In effect a faster payment can not be reversed. So if you make one and then change your mind its tough.
But if it is a fraudulent transaction (hacked acc etc) then if their are funds in the receiving account then the money can be claimed back, with inter-bank cooperation.

Sadly your situation is one that has in many ways been brought on by the public demanding that money has to be sent straight away and not stuck in a system for a few days. As well as wanting goods ASAP.
Had this still have been pre faster payment days. The hacked acc holder may have picked it up before you had sent the goods.

Sometimes progress has it drawbacks.

plewis00

eskbanker wrote: »

There's plenty of misinformation on these forums, as with any such public environment where anyone can post.

You've made statements in this thread that are unlikely to be factual and I've certainly made my share of mistakes on here (in other threads!), so, despite comments being made in good faith by most posters, 'trust but verify' isn't a bad maxim for forum posts (and high-value online sales too....).

I’d like to know what you think I said that isn’t factual (where I wasn’t giving my point of view)? We do our due diligence, that’s why this is the first time I’ve ever come across it - really. And we do sell a lot of high-value product. It’s not unlikely for a business to contact us and pay by bank transfer and usually substantially more.

plewis00

born_again wrote: »

In effect a faster payment can not be reversed. So if you make one and then change your mind its tough.
But if it is a fraudulent transaction (hacked acc etc) then if their are funds in the receiving account then the money can be claimed back, with inter-bank cooperation.

Sadly your situation is one that has in many ways been brought on by the public demanding that money has to be sent straight away and not stuck in a system for a few days. As well as wanting goods ASAP.
Had this still have been pre faster payment days. The hacked acc holder may have picked it up before you had sent the goods.

Sometimes progress has it drawbacks.

Sorry but I couldn’t figure out how to multi-quote in a reply...

Thing is, even if this had been done by slow transfer, it wasn’t picked up on for weeks so it would still have gone through and been shipped by the time this happened.

I asked Barclays what I could have done at the time and they said nothing within reason... asking for various forms of ID and definitive proof of ownership of an account would lead a genuine buyer to say ‘stuff it’ and go elsewhere without doubt, in fact they might think they’re the victim of fraud as what if we were just harvesting their personal data? Barclays said had the funds been used or spent they would not have taken them back - not sure I believe that but there is a suggestion that if I’d transferred them to a supplier account, another bank account or just bought more stock this would somehow have no longer been our problem - which given the situation seems totally counter-intuitive.

eskbanker

plewis00 wrote: »

I’d like to know what you think I said that isn’t factual (where I wasn’t giving my point of view)? We do our due diligence, that’s why this is the first time I’ve ever come across it - really. And we do sell a lot of high-value product. It’s not unlikely for a business to contact us and pay by bank transfer and usually substantially more.

I wasn't really trying to stoke an argument, just making the point that forum posts can't be relied on as gospel, whoever contributed them.

I was thinking specifically of your assertion about "the banks telling you it is one-way and irreversible (which they do)" which I was challenging earlier, as I don't ever recall seeing a bank stating definitively that money paid into your account can't be reversed back out again, as this would be rash and (as you've found) untrue. There was also the unanswered question about references to BACS, which wouldn't be used by an individual (who'd transfer funds using the different Faster Payments method), although you've said in this last post that you're taking orders from businesses so perhaps it is BACS rules that apply rather than Faster Payments?

plewis00

eskbanker wrote: »

I wasn't really trying to stoke an argument, just making the point that forum posts can't be relied on as gospel, whoever contributed them.

I was thinking specifically of your assertion about "the banks telling you it is one-way and irreversible (which they do)" which I was challenging earlier, as I don't ever recall seeing a bank stating definitively that money paid into your account can't be reversed back out again, as this would be rash and (as you've found) untrue. There was also the unanswered question about references to BACS, which wouldn't be used by an individual (who'd transfer funds using the different Faster Payments method), although you've said in this last post that you're taking orders from businesses so perhaps it is BACS rules that apply rather than Faster Payments?

Not sure strictly which method was used as they seem to use Faster Payments and BACS interchangeably when referring to a payment that isn't SWIFT or CHAPS.

sal_III

the branch manager told me to 'use my personal accounts' until I explained that they'd locked those out and that would also be terrible advice for tax reasons.

Not defending the branch manager advice or the way Barclays handled the situation, but why is it terrible advice for tax reasons?

Unless you have a very high turnover, simply record all such transactions as credit/debit of the Director loan account in your company books, until you sort out an alternative business account. It's not a personal income so you won't liable for income tax.

plewis00

sal_III wrote: »

Not defending the branch manager advice or the way Barclays handled the situation, but why is it terrible advice for tax reasons?

Unless you have a very high turnover, simply record all such transactions as credit/debit of the Director loan account in your company books, until you sort out an alternative business account. It's not a personal income so you won't liable for income tax.

From an accountancy point of view it's a bit of a nightmare and the business does turnover enough that I really didn't want it going through hypothetical personal accounts that were locked at the same time. Barclays admitted this was wrong and offered a gesture of goodwill for that advice.

In the end, I called PayPal who were infinitely more helpful and said just leave the money in there for any incoming transactions until it's sorted out - I informed them of the situation and they didn't seem bothered by it.