A bank is holding my funds

Junior3388

Hello everybody,

This is my first post on this forum. Currently I am undergoing some hardships with a financial company in UK.

I guess that I am not allowed to write the name of this company publicly, but what I can tell you is that this company is regulated by FCA (Financial Conduct Authority).

In short, this company has frozen my account at the end of August. The agents on the online chat keep telling me that "specialists" are reviewing my account for the sake of security... despite the fact I have told them several times that I would like them to close my account and release my funds.
It sounds as if they have made me hang around for the last few weeks...

I have thought about sending a legal mail to their headquarters, but I don't have any "template" for this kind of dispute. Basically, I want my letter to be as relevant as if I was a lawyer. (Unfortunately I can't afford the services of a lawyer)

I manage an online store and they are killing my business, so to speak. I really need your help, all the more as I am not a UK resident and English is not my native language.

Please help me, any piece of advice would be really appreciated.

Kind regards
Junior

boo_star

Who is the company?

[Deleted User]

Is it a business account?
If you’re not a uk resident how do you have a uk account?
Why don’t you have the account where you reside?
Who is the account with?
What “online business” is it you do?

shortcrust

Do they perhaps suspect fraud or money laundering?

Junior3388

Hey thanks for these quick replies

Am I really allowed to write the name of the company? Well, it's Revolut LTD.

This is a business account. I have business accounts in my native country but UK accounts are better fiscally speaking.
I run online stores (as you can imagine, I don't want to be more precise because this is not good for customers in case they know the owner is a bit struggling with a lack of money)

I don't know what this bank is suspecting about me and I don't care as I have nothing to feel bad about.
They have said nothing about the reasons of this review.
By the way, over the last few months, they required some additional reviews about my business and I passed them successfully (twice!)

Anyway, is it legal in UK for a bank to hold funds so long?

Thanks

[Deleted User]

Yes, it's legal.

They won't close your accounts or provide the money until they're happy that the funds are legitimate.

Junior3388

There is no legal deadline or time limit (let's say 3 months for example) ?

Junior3388

I am asking this question because if there isn't a time limit (in these investigations), then that means a bank is allowed to do anything, basically.
Sounds really abusive. They have to prove that something is wrong/fraudulent in my business or at least they have to let me show evidence that my business is legit. As I have told you previously, I completed successfully two reviews (I answered their questions and provided documents) and the last review occured only 1 month prior to the blocking.
Their decision is 100% unilateral.

Davy_Jones_II

Banks in the UK are extremely tightly regulated, and part of this regulation is around how they must treat accounts that they suspect of being used in certain financial crimes.

While it can, unfortunately, result in frustration for customers, the banks won’t generally risk being fined billions of pounds in fines for getting it wrong.

The investigation will take as long as it takes, and if it dies turn out to be a suspicion of money laundering they cannot legally tell you.

Junior3388

All the funds that arrived to this Revolut account came directly from Stripe, one of the most famous payment gateway for online shops... (in other words, they didn't come from a shady and unknown gateway in the dark web)
Then I either withdrew them with the Revo card or paid Facebook/SnapChat/GoogleAds (advertising purpose) or my supplier.
Nothing unusual here...

By the way, I provided explanations and documents for each types of transactions (Stripe.com, ATM withdrawals, and so on... ) in the additional reviews.

They are abusive at best, scammers at worst, period.

[Deleted User]

Junior3388 wrote: »

They are abusive at best, scammers at worst, period.

Clearly that's not true, period, colon, close brackets.