Barclays CIFAS Marker- Urgent advice nesded

angelbusiness1

Hi, I need urgent advice to remove Barclays CIFAS marker on my credit file.
I have always used my personal account for my Limited company through Barclays, simply becauae they will not open a business account for me. I run an.accountancy and tax business.
Recently, a CIFAS marker was placed on my personal file because they claim that a client paid monies into my account fraudulently. They also placed same records on National Hunter files against me.
I showed Barclays all the two invoices to the clients, as accountants.  But they asked for correspondence with the client and how I got the client. I informed them that I couldnt pass my client details to them because of confidentiality and Data protection rules and that they wont do so if I asked them for their client info.
On the invoice wss the name.of the director, and limited company address.
On 27 August 2020, they closed my personal acccount which I had with them.for over 25 years. But then,  on the next day, 28th August 2020  they opened a new business account for my Limited company and returned the money from my personal account to me (over £20k.)
 I asked them to transfer the funds to the new business account which they did.
Now, they have placed fCIFAS marker and National Hunter markers against my personal and business files for fraud! I have obtained my Data subject records from both CIFAS and National Hunter and they show that Barclays placed fraud markers there.
Question is: if those two payments were fraudulent - eventhough I proved to them via genuine invoices that they aren't - why did they return my funds to me; and more importantly, why did they open a business account for me the next day? The business account is live now but I panic whenever I issue invoices to clients because of all this.
I need help to  challenge this unfair treatment and to get the markers removed. Can I sue for this injustice?
Please, please help!



 

[Deleted User]

angelbusiness1 said:

Hi, I need urgent advice to remove Barclays CIFAS marker on my credit file.
I have always used my personal account for my Limited company through Barclays, simply becauae they will not open a business account for me. I run an.accountancy and tax business.
Recently, a CIFAS marker was placed on my personal file because they claim that a client paid monies into my account fraudulently. They also placed same records on National Hunter files against me.
I showed Barclays all the two invoices to the clients, as accountants.  But they asked for correspondence with the client and how I got the client. I informed them that I couldnt pass my client details to them because of confidentiality and Data protection rules and that they wont do so if I asked them for their client info.
On the invoice wss the name.of the director, and limited company address.
On 27 August 2020, they closed my personal acccount which I had with them.for over 25 years. But then,  on the next day, 28th August 2020  they opened a new business account for my Limited company and returned the money from my personal account to me (over £20k.)
 I asked them to transfer the funds to the new business account which they did.
Now, they have placed fCIFAS marker and National Hunter markers against my personal and business files for fraud! I have obtained my Data subject records from both CIFAS and National Hunter and they show that Barclays placed fraud markers there.
Question is: if those two payments were fraudulent - eventhough I proved to them via genuine invoices that they aren't - why did they return my funds to me; and more importantly, why did they open a business account for me the next day? The business account is live now but I panic whenever I issue invoices to clients because of all this.
I need help to  challenge this unfair treatment and to get the markers removed. Can I sue for this injustice?
Please, please help!



 

How can you not know the answers to your questions then ?
What advice would you give your own clients on this subject ?

D3xt3r5L4b

You should have opened a business account elsewhere then. 

MattMattMattUK

angelbusiness1 said:

I have always used my personal account for my Limited company through Barclays, simply becauae they will not open a business account for me. I run an.accountancy and tax business.

Banks will open accounts for limited companies and sole trader businesses. Also if you are operating an accountancy/tax advice business then you should be fully aware of the need to separate the finances of an individual and a limited company. If you offer any regulated financial services or are a registered accountant then separation of personal and business finances is also required by the regulator and your professional body.

angelbusiness1 said:

Recently, a CIFAS marker was placed on my personal file because they claim that a client paid monies into my account fraudulently. They also placed same records on National Hunter files against me.
I showed Barclays all the two invoices to the clients, as accountants.  But they asked for correspondence with the client and how I got the client. I informed them that I couldnt pass my client details to them because of confidentiality and Data protection rules and that they wont do so if I asked them for their client info.
On the invoice wss the name.of the director, and limited company address.

Data protection and confidentiality does not apply when legal or regulatory restrictions override it. The banks also have procedures in place to cover just these instances, these are approved by the regulator and ICO, there is no data protection issue. Company names, directors and company addresses are public domain information, they are legally required to be available for public access and any company address is available on companies house, as well as a whole lot more information, as you should well know if you run an accounting business.

angelbusiness1 said:

On 27 August 2020, they closed my personal acccount which I had with them.for over 25 years. But then,  on the next day, 28th August 2020  they opened a new business account for my Limited company and returned the money from my personal account to me (over £20k.)
 I asked them to transfer the funds to the new business account which they did.
Now, they have placed fCIFAS marker and National Hunter markers against my personal and business files for fraud! I have obtained my Data subject records from both CIFAS and National Hunter and they show that Barclays placed fraud markers there.

They will, you will also find that nearly every other bank will do the same once they see the CIFAS fraud marker.

angelbusiness1 said:

Question is: if those two payments were fraudulent - eventhough I proved to them via genuine invoices that they aren't - why did they return my funds to me; and more importantly, why did they open a business account for me the next day? The business account is live now but I panic whenever I issue invoices to clients because of all this.
I need help to  challenge this unfair treatment and to get the markers removed. 

An invoice in isolation proves nothing, it is a document which could be produced by anyone, saying anything. You did not prove anything to them, you sent a few unverified documents and then refused to cooperate.
The reason they returned those funds to you is that they are required to do so by law, until a Proceeds of Crime order is issued by a court. You may well find that they close the business account shortly, once their systems process that the owner/operator of the business has a CIFAS fraud marker.
The only "challenge" you can make to this is to fully cooperate and prove that the original transactions were not fraudulent, you have no route to challenge the decision if you refuse to cooperate.

angelbusiness1 said:

Can I sue for this injustice?

No, a) because they have followed a legal and regulator approved procedure and b) because there is no injustice, you have brought this situation upon yourself by refusing to cooperate.

It seems very odd that someone with such little understanding of these matters runs an "accountancy and tax business". Those are regulated sectors, both legally and professionally. Are you registered with the regulator and accredited by professional bodies? Are you insured and licensed to operate in those sectors? 

tacpot12

I think to sue, you would need to prove negligence; but you could consult a solicitor to see if there is another option. If there is no way to sue, you are left with using Barclay's formal complaint process, and then escalating this to the Financial Ombudsman Service.

Your current account should have been closed by Barclays long before this as its terms and conditions don't allow payments to a Limited company into it. The alarm bells should have been ringing at Barclays for a long time. You should have opened a business bank account elsewhere if Barclay's wouldn't open one, and should not have been trading at all until you had this bank account. I don't think you are going to be able to show that Barclays acted unreasonably in closing your account - their terms and conditions would allow this, but you might complain that as a customer of 25 years they should have given you a little time to arrange for a business bank account to be opened elsewhere if they weren't prepared to open one for you. 

I wonder whether the "fraudulent" activity was actually money laundering. I'm not an expert on this area, but I think you need to establish whether Barclays is a competent authority to investigate fraud. Can they unilaterally say that an transaction is fraudulent? I somehow doubt it, and even if they know that a customer is receiving payments that a fraudulent do they have any remit to tell you that it is fraudulent? Or to stop this until they have made a SAR to the NCA?  You need more specialist advice. You might be lucky and get it here, but you might also need to pay for some help from an organisation such as https://www.ifa.org.uk/

This document give you an idea of what you should have been doing about money laundering in your own business: https://www.ifa.org.uk/media/826270/Anti-money-laundering-guidance-for-the-accountacny-sector.pdf

MattMattMattUK

tacpot12 said:

I wonder whether the "fraudulent" activity was actually money laundering. 

If you are transfering clients money through your business account that automatically falls foul of the anti-money laundering legislation, you need a special kind of bank account with a specific agreement in place with the bank.

tacpot12 said:

I'm not an expert on this area, but I think you need to establish whether Barclays is a competent authority to investigate fraud. Can they unilaterally say that an transaction is fraudulent? I somehow doubt it, and even if they know that a customer is receiving payments that a fraudulent do they have any remit to tell you that it is fraudulent? 

The banks are bound by legislation to stop transactions and close accounts where money laundering is strongly suspected. They are not able to open a prosecution, but the anti-money laundering regulations and the CIFAS system is supported by legislation and the regulator. 

tacpot12 said:

Or to stop this until they have made a SAR to the NCA?  You need more specialist advice. 

They do not have to make any such enquiries, the banks operate in a heavily regulated environment, which also places regulated obligation upon them, anti-money laundering procedures, which they have followed based on the original post being just one of them. The file will have also been passed to the police for further and more detailed investigation. 

MEM62

angelbusiness1 said:

I have always used my personal account for my Limited company through Barclays, simply becauae they will not open a business account for me. I run an.accountancy and tax business.

Then you of all people should know that you cannot do this.  I would hate to think of the quality of advice that you are giving to clients.    

jonesMUFCforever

Jackanory - nobody can be this silly can they?

Yahoo_Mail

jonesMUFCforever said:

Jackanory - nobody can be this silly can they?

No, but I'm worried people are even dignifying it with a response.  It's such utter hogwash that I'm speechless anyone would even bother with it.

MattMattMattUK

jonesMUFCforever said:

Jackanory - nobody can be this silly can they?

Unfortunately, yes they can. Having interacted with the British public and dealt with small businesses over the years some appear to be entirely ignorant of the regulations and obligations placed on them. Around 5% of small businesses do not have public liability insurance despite for example, not insignificant numbers of small businesses file their accounts and corporation tax returns late. It really would not surprise me that someone was offering accounting and tax guidance without qualification or accreditation, I do feel sorry for their customers who will probably be getting wrong advice and will be in huge amounts of bother when it all catches up with them, although again it will be partially their fault for using a non accredited person to try and save a bit of money.