Blocked account because buyer claimed unauthorised payment

SparkOfDeath

Hi there, I've made an account to ask for advice on a stressful problem that's turned up.

So I've sold a couple of very expensive items privately to a seller who agreed to pay £10,000 for them. The first time he tried to send the £10K to my account, Santander bounced it back immediately and blocked my account until I let them interrogate me over the phone and in the branch about why 10K was coming into my account.

At the end of that visit, they unblocked my account, apologised and encouraged me to have the 10K come in again if the buyer resent it. The buyer agreed, but this time he decided to send it to my account in smaller instalments over a few days as to try and avoid all of that happening again.

As soon as I received the final amount, I used the money to pay off a couple of credit cards and loans from friends. Two days later Santander have blocked my account again. This time they say that they were contacted by another bank to say that only one of the instalments (of about £1400) was unauthorised and that I must now come into the bank with proof or a statement from the buyers bank account.

In a ridiculous turn of events, the buyers phone has been permanently off and hasn't been replying to any texts or messages on the selling website he found me on.

It's likely there's some scam going on here that I'm not savvy too, but I'm here hoping for some advice for when I go into the bank on Monday to explain all of this.

How likely is it that they're going to demand I return that instalment of £1400, or even the whole £10K even though I've already paid debts with it? What rights have I got against the bank or this buyer here?

Cheers in advance!

Ben8282

I find it strange that Santander 'bounced the payment back'.Why should they?
If they did indeed interrogate you on the phone and in branch and were satisfied, why did the buyer then send the money in smaller instalments as assurances had been received that everything would now be ok? Also, when the buyers first payment was bounced back to them, why did they not contact their bank and ask what was going on and why the payment was returned?
Paying off credit cards sounds reasonable but 'loans from friends'? In other words very shortly after receiving the funds you transferred the money to these 'friends'. They must be very good friends lending you substantial sums of money. But that does not appear to be an issue here.
There is no way that you would have been asked to come into branch with a statement from somebody elses bank account. The request is as you say ridiculous and I thought they were already satisfied. And this statement would have been proof of what? Santander are well aware of where the money came from. But again that does not appear to be an issue here.
The idea that only one of the transactions was authorised is equally odd. The buyer sends one payment then somehow you have the ability to log into their account and send further transactions to yourself? Several times over a period of days when, presumably, the buyer was not checking their account in order to notice what was going on. Saying that only one of multiple credit card transactions was authorised is credible; saying that only one of a number of separate transactions, presumably faster payments, instigated by the buyer as opposed to taken by you is not credible, especially as the total value presumably adds up to the value of the original bounced back transaction.
I assume you have evidence of dispatch and receipt of whatever these rather expensive items that you sold were, although once again that does not appear to be an issue here.
The sole issue here appears to be the buyers claim that only one of their payments to you was authorised. In the absence of any evidence that you had the ability to access their account and make the payments, this is not credible and it defies belief that the buyers bank took the claim seriously.

SparkOfDeath wrote: »

. This time they say that they were contacted by another bank to say that only one of the instalments (of about £1400) was unauthorised

I assumed this is a typo and you meant only one of the transactions was authorised as otherwise the sentence as written is very odd as it implies that they had previously said all the transactions were unauthorised.. However, the final paragraph of your OP would appear to indicate that it is only this one transaction which is disputed which makes the whole business stranger and stranger.

SparkOfDeath wrote: »

So I've sold a couple of very expensive items privately to a seller who agreed to pay £10,000 for them.

A typo or did you sell them to a fence?

boo_star

You've either been scammed or you're complicit in a scam.

Best of luck.

The way you distributed the funds is such utter equine faeces that I'm not surprised they don't believe it.

jonesMUFCforever

Spark of Death can I ask a few questions?
All of the payments that came in (the second time) did they all come from the same bank account? You should be able to work out the details from the FPI reference on your statement.

If they have come from different bank accounts ask yourself why?
It does seem that someone has been the victim of fraud here and the £1400 will be taken off you and unless you have a good paper trail to convince the bank that the transaction is genuine you could end up with your account closed and a CIFAS marker.

Can we also ask what you sold for £10k -is it something that could be converted easily into cash?

born_again

Also can the OP add which selling site was used.

SparkOfDeath

Thankyou for your replies. To be more specific, the selling site used was Gumtree and a correspondence to the buyer is still in the messages of my account. The items that were sold were a broadcast quality video camera as that's my area of work, as well as a massive 4K TV that was a stupid compulsive buy on a credit card.
This money that I owe friends is for a holiday abroad earlier in the year, and a bad car repair that I couldn't afford but needed fixed for work. As it happens I do have two very good friends who have large amounts of money who are always available for a loan, as shifty as that might seem at a glance.

I think the other unanswered question was about the account I received the installments from.. Indeed there were two accounts that the money came from, but I didn't think much of it as the buyer said the camera and TV would be perfect for his own business, so some of the payments might come from his business account.

Typing this out I realise what an idiot I've been, but I truly can't afford to give back this money, especially no longer owning the goods I was selling

Sammurp1990

I thought banks wasn't allowed to tell the reason? Also strange the way only 1 of the payments was 'unauthorised' are you sure all payments were sent from the same account?

It's unusual a bank to decline money coming in I would have thought

SparkOfDeath

The money had already been in my account for a good day before they blocked me and said it was unauthorised, by that point I'd already used the cash to pay off debts. And yeah, just 1 of the 3 or 4 installments had flagged as unauthorised, but no doubt since they all came from the same person, they will try to demand all 10K back from me

Ben8282

What you have written above really only adds to the confusion.
When a payment is received it will show the name of the sender.
If the names are different, then beyond the coincidence that the total value of all the 'instalments' adding up to the value of the original 'bounced back' payment (which actually should work in your favour rather than against you), then what is there to connect this payment with the other payments? So the actual problem now would appear to be the fact that you have received a payment of £1400, into your account and the sender denies having made this transaction, everything else in fact being irrelevant. Presumably no explanation has been offered of how you or your accomplice managed to gain access to this account to make the transfer has been offered.

Ben8282

SparkOfDeath wrote: »

The money had already been in my account for a good day before they blocked me and said it was unauthorised, by that point I'd already used the cash to pay off debts. And yeah, just 1 of the 3 or 4 installments had flagged as unauthorised, but no doubt since they all came from the same person, they will try to demand all 10K back from me

Unauthorised is a very strange term to be using.
Now you are saying the payments all came from the same person using two different accounts? Nothing unusual in itself about that. But we just come back to the same point. How can a faster payment be 'unauthorised' unless somebody accessed the account without the account holder's knowledge to send the payment which in these circumstances is so unlikely that it defies belief that anybody is taking the senders claim seriously.

SparkOfDeath

Sorry, I just realised my mistake. I keep saying the money is from the same person because in my mind, I've made a transaction with a guy, and he is paying me, but it is correct that these payments have come from two different names.

Unauthorized is the word the bank used over the phone, which is weird for sure because why was it sent in the first place if apparently it was unauthorized.
I figure this guy has paid me, received the goods, and then claimed someone hacked him and sent money