Blocked account because buyer claimed unauthorised payment

boo_star

SparkOfDeath wrote: »

It actually is indeed the first conclusion, that it was simply blocked and rejected because it was a suspiciously large amount of money coming into my account, 10k would be the largest amount my bank had ever seen come in during the 15 years I was with santander. I still think it was rediculous though, there was no mention of anything fraudulent at that point in time, they just pounced on me because they felt like it

Nonsense. They just don't do that, and I speak from personal experience having a few tens of thousands paid into my account at one point and moving it around a bit AND working for a bank.

They might question where the funds came from, but only after they land in your account.

18cc

The reason a bank may block an account when funds arrive into it is if there is some sort of marker on the account the money was sent from.

For example, that account my be under investigation for money laundering, money muling, fraud etc etc.

That is why, to a certain extent, we are all at risk when we allow payments into our account from other accounts - you never truly know the status of the sending account.

For example, a fraudster could defraud a person out of they life savings by telling them to move it into a 'safe account'. The fraudster then uses that money to purchase something off Gumtree and they collect it. Meanwhile, the person realises they have been defrauded, complains and the sending bank is frozen. They see a large amount has gone out to another account (yours) and so they ask for that to be frozen. The first you know of it is that your bank account is frozen and then your expensive item has disappeared into the sunset on the back of a van.

Terry_Towelling

18cc wrote: »

The reason a bank may block an account when funds arrive into it is if there is some sort of marker on the account the money was sent from.

For example, that account my be under investigation for money laundering, money muling, fraud etc etc.

That is why, to a certain extent, we are all at risk when we allow payments into our account from other accounts - you never truly know the status of the sending account.

For example, a fraudster could defraud a person out of they life savings by telling them to move it into a 'safe account'. The fraudster then uses that money to purchase something off Gumtree and they collect it. Meanwhile, the person realises they have been defrauded, complains and the sending bank is frozen. They see a large amount has gone out to another account (yours) and so they ask for that to be frozen. The first you know of it is that your bank account is frozen and then your expensive item has disappeared into the sunset on the back of a van.

This doesn't sound appropriate for what OP has described, though. OP's account was only frozen after the £10K had been allegedly bounced. If the sending account had a marker on it, surely the sending bank would have stopped the transfer. OP quite clearly confirms the receiving bank bounced the payment

If money is 'suspect' and someone tries to transfer it, it would normally be blocked by the sending bank. If it isn't 'suspect' at that point, but the receiving bank suspects it may be, and bounces it straight back to the sender, that means the money is still 'at large' and the sender has another opportunity to do something potentially illegal with it. The only correct way for a bank to deal with 'suspect' funds (in my opinion) is to hold on to them and then freeze the receiving account.


What OP describes just doesn't hang together.