blocked lloyds account

lloydusage

I lent a friend £150 around Christmas times as he needed it and I was waiting for him to pay me back. So 2 weeks ago he said he's cousin was gonna repay me the money back and so I gave him my sort code and account number. And just before sending me the money he said can his cousin send me £500 as he doesn't have a card and i give it to him. So I thought no worries as they are cousins and I can help him out and gave him the £500. couple days later I getting a letter from lloyds saying they closed my account due to fraudulent transactions. I called and visited them but they haven't done anything for me and they are still going to close my card. Is there anything I can do to stop my card from getting closed because if that happens then I will most likely get a Cifas Marker which will 100% mess up my life as I am in university currently doing a finance course. 

mwarby

I'd imagine its due to money laundering concerns, generally when this is the case they don't reverse the decision. Part of it is to avoid an offence called tipping off. Depending in what the marker is it might not be so bad, and you can dispute it, I'd guess Lloyds won't want to risk you as a customer for some time though

eskbanker

They won't change their mind and keep your account open, and if they genuinely did say there was fraud then (a) you will be getting a CIFAS marker, and (b) you may have more significant issues to worry about if the police show any interest in the (criminal act of) fraud....

lloydusage

that's what it said in the letter but I wasn't aware of any fraud. The person in the bank said that this was a third party fraud which is bizarre to me and would anyone tell me what CIFAS cat that would be.

colsten

Never ever entertain requests like the one you have entertained there. The "cousin" is probably a known money launderer. Looks you have learned a rather painful lesson and probably got yourself a third-party CIFAS marker in the process. You'll find more information on the CIFAS site.

lloydusage

Yeah I realized this was pretty kind but naive of me. I did check on the website but it only talked about first party fraud. I will fight my case but I just want to prepare myself for the worse and know how long the cifas marker would last.

notveryeducated

You will not get a bank account from ANY high street bank, not even a basic bank account or any products for that matter (savings accounts, mortgages) for 6 years with a category 6 fraud CIFAS marker (which is most likely what you will get/already have).
Every bank account you apply for with any of the high street banks will be straight up rejected or in the rare case the application gets accepted it will be blocked and closed after 1-2 weeks, I can promise you that now.

Did Lloyds really say the account was closed due to "fraudulent transactions", because I'm pretty sure that breaks tipping off rules which somehow violates the law. Someone at the bank could get into some trouble for saying that. 

Also, if you are innocent then obviously challenge to get this removed but be prepared to put up a fight against Lloyds. Gather all the evidence you have now to be able to fight your corner. 

george9071

Take this as a lesson not to give out your bank details to ANYONE, as for the CIFAS marker it will most possibly last for 6 years, so opening a new account wouldn't be easy in the slightest. If i was you i would try to get an account with monzo but even with that i wouldn't hold much hope. As previous poster said, gather as much evidence as possible to help you in this situation.

NedS

george9071 said:

Take this as a lesson not to give out your bank details to ANYONE...

One wonders how you are supposed to perform any transactions if you are not able to give out your account number and sort code?

A work colleague and I went out for lunch at Weatherspoons last month. He ordered on the App and paid, I took his account details and sent him payment for my half. Should he have been more cautious and insisted payment in cash? Both being over 50's, we thought we were being tech savvy and were quite impressed with ourselves. How would he be expected to know whether or not I was a fraud risk?

[Deleted User]

NedS said:

How would he be expected to know whether or not I was a fraud risk?

He'd have known because instead of just sending what you owed him, you'd have sent him ten times that amount and asked him to give you the balance back.  

Thats not how normal people pay a small debt.

colsten

Deleted_User said:

He'd have known because instead of just sending what you owed him, you'd have sent him ten times that amount and asked him to give you the balance back.  

Thats not how normal people pay a small debt.

Also, "I have no card for my account" is not credible. Everyone can get a debit card for their current account, and if for some reason they temporarily don't have one, they can take appropriate ID to their bank and withdraw cash over the counter.

However, receiving £500 from someone by bank transfer doesn't result in your account being closed. Either the money came from a fraudster who is known to the bank, or there is a lot more to the story than we have been told.