Barclays Closed Account and CIFAS marker placed

TurningANewLeaf

vacheron wrote: »

Sorry OP, but you must see how this looks...

Your Son:

Has no proof he ever had these items.
Has no proof he ever sold these items.
Has no proof the buyer even exists
Has no proof he ever shipped these items.
Has no proof the courier he used even exists
Has no proof that he had replacement items
Has no proof he ever sold these replacement items.
Has no proof that they buyer collected these replacement items.

I don't think the assumption in bold has been established yet?


It could be the son is a little naive. Just playing devil's advocate here.


I mean let's say, for example, he has a sideline selling scarves. He buys some scarves in cash from a market, or maybe from some factory in China, with the intention of reselling them for profit. He doesn't have paperwork (although if he buys them online at minimum there should be a transaction on his bank or paypal account or whatever, but that doesn't constitute proof of purchase of these particular items).


So he resells them, customer then complains they haven't arrived. He hasn't got proof of postage because he's used a cheap courier company. Not unreasonable to think that could happen. And it's not unreasonable to think a fraudulent individual or company might realise on arrival of goods that there is no 'proof of postage' and apply for a chargeback or a dispute with paypal. They'll always take the side of the buyer in these situations if the seller can't provide evidence of postage.


Now it might not be unreasonable at this point for someone young and naive to think "I know, I'll transfer the money to my mother/father before I lose the dispute and the money gets taken from my account".


But where the son has been particularly naive is handing the goods over in person, when a dispute is already in progress. Did the buyer pay again I wonder, opening the door for another dispute? Or did the son just naively think this would go away if he handed the goods over in person, at this point still not suspecting he could be a victim of fraud?


Not saying he is innocent here, the exact dates of each event might give some clue here. I.e. the date he transferred the money to his parent, the date he first became aware of the dispute, the date they collected in person etc. For example, if he transferred the money before he was even aware there might be a dispute on the horizon, then he sounds pretty guilty.

boo_star

TurningANewLeaf wrote: »

I don't think the assumption in bold has been established yet?


It could be the son is a little naive. Just playing devil's advocate here.


I mean let's say, for example, he has a sideline selling scarves. He buys some scarves in cash from a market, or maybe from some factory in China, with the intention of reselling them for profit. He doesn't have paperwork (although if he buys them online at minimum there should be a transaction on his bank or paypal account or whatever, but that doesn't constitute proof of purchase of these particular items).


So he resells them, customer then complains they haven't arrived. He hasn't got proof of postage because he's used a cheap courier company. Not unreasonable to think that could happen. And it's not unreasonable to think a fraudulent individual or company might realise on arrival of goods that there is no 'proof of postage' and apply for a chargeback or a dispute with paypal. They'll always take the side of the buyer in these situations if the seller can't provide evidence of postage.


Now it might not be unreasonable at this point for someone young and naive to think "I know, I'll transfer the money to my mother/father before I lose the dispute and the money gets taken from my account".


But where the son has been particularly naive is handing the goods over in person, when a dispute is already in progress. Did the buyer pay again I wonder, opening the door for another dispute? Or did the son just naively think this would go away if he handed the goods over in person, at this point still not suspecting he could be a victim of fraud?


Not saying he is innocent here, the exact dates of each event might give some clue here. I.e. the date he transferred the money to his parent, the date he first became aware of the dispute, the date they collected in person etc. For example, if he transferred the money before he was even aware there might be a dispute on the horizon, then he sounds pretty guilty.

Business use of a personal account.

Bye bye account.

Next hypothetical?

TurningANewLeaf

boo_star wrote: »

Business use of a personal account.

Bye bye account.

Next hypothetical?

Eh? There is nothing stopping you from conducting business on a personal account.

boo_star

TurningANewLeaf wrote: »

Eh? There is nothing stopping you from conducting business on a personal account.

Other than the terms and conditions which will specifically prohibit it.

TurningANewLeaf

boo_star wrote: »

Other than the terms and conditions which will specifically prohibit it.

Even if it were in the T&Cs, if the banks closed down every personal account that receives the odd transaction from paypal, or stripe or a bank transfer or whatever every now and again, they'd have to close down most the accounts in Britain!

Davy_Jones_II

TurningANewLeaf wrote: »

Even if it were in the T&Cs, if the banks closed down every personal account that receives the odd transaction from paypal, or stripe or a bank transfer or whatever every now and again, they'd have to close down most the accounts in Britain!

But no-one’s saying they would do this, and that has nothing to do with this thread. If I sell an old stereo, or sofa, or some books from the attic, that’s not using my personal account for business. The OP mentioned explicitly that the accounts were in this case being used for business.

TurningANewLeaf

Davy_Jones_II wrote: »

But no-one’s saying they would do this, and that has nothing to do with this thread. If I sell an old stereo, or sofa, or some books from the attic, that’s not using my personal account for business. The OP mentioned explicitly that the accounts were in this case being used for business.

Yes, and how exactly are the banks going to differentiate between a person selling some 2nd hand items they want to get rid of on ebay (or whatever) and a person who had bought some items explicitly for reselling (assuming there isn't a huge volume of transactions here, which there probably won't be as most people fail at business).


The person I was responding to seemed to be suggesting that as soon you use your personal account for business, that is your account gone, which is clearly not the case!

boo_star

TurningANewLeaf wrote: »

Yes, and how exactly are the banks going to differentiate between a person selling some 2nd hand items they want to get rid of on ebay (or whatever) and a person who had bought some items explicitly for reselling (assuming there isn't a huge volume of transactions here, which there probably won't be as most people fail at business).


The person I was responding to seemed to be suggesting that as soon you use your personal account for business, that is your account gone, which is clearly not the case!

It is if they find out.

I closed numerous accounts for precisely that reason when I worked for a bank.

We didn't search for them but if you contacted anyone it was so obvious.

Given that personal accounts are largely free and business accounts aren't why wouldn't they?

TurningANewLeaf

boo_star wrote: »

It is if they find out.

I closed numerous accounts for precisely that reason when I worked for a bank.

We didn't search for them but if you contacted anyone it was so obvious.

Given that personal accounts are largely free and business accounts aren't why wouldn't they?

Yes, well I would suspect in the cases where it is 'obvious' most banks would write them a letter or call them up saying you really should (or you have to) switch over to our £90/yr business account (or however much these rip-off merchants charge) before tossing them onto the scrapheap and losing that customer forever, ESPECIALLY if they were generating a decent amount of income.


I have a business account (which has a mastercard) and a personal account (which has a visa card), and there has been a couple of times where I have had to use my personal account to pay for transactions related to business because the company abroad won't take mastercard (believe it or not). But no one gives a monkeys. And it is pretty straight forward to address that when it comes to ensuring my finances are in order.


I can see though why you 'used' to work for a bank.

Ben8282

It does seem to me to be somewhat odd that Barclays would choose to close a satisfactorily maintained 30 year old account soley on the basis of 3 relatively small payments being received into that account from a Nationwide account which was under review for suspicious activity, take £250 from the account (and return it to Nationwide?) and place a CIFAS marker. It all seems very disproportionate and done on the basis of no evidence of wrongdoing by the customer whatsoever. Receiving money from your son is not a crime and there is no direct evidence that the Mother was party to any wrongdoing. Furthermore, there is no evidence that the funds received were the funds allegedly received as a result of the suspicious activity and no opportunity has been given to the account holder to explain the purpose of the transfers from her son, which could have been for any number of legitimate reasons. Based on the length of time the account has been held she is probably elderly and, on balance of probability, was probably not involved in any wrongdoing on the part of her son (assuming there was wrongdoing which is far from proven).

The son however has at the very least behaved somewhat irresponsibly but again on what basis are Nationwide accepting the statement of the buyer, made presumably via their own bank and not directly to a Nationwide employee, that they have never received the goods? Why is that persons word and version of events taken at face value over the word of the Nationwide account holder without even consulting the Nationwide account holder and asking for their version of events?. Even if the son had used a reputable firm to send the goods and had proof of delivery or he had obtained a signature from the buyer that he had personally handed over the goods, he has been tried and convicted without being even given the opportunity to present such evidence to Nationwide to prove the buyers version of events false. A buyer falsely claiming not to have received goods after sending a bank transfer is a known scam., possibly more common than sellers failing to send the goods in the first place.