Bank closed my £9k account until further notice, with my uni loan in there. Please help!

Penelopa.Pitstop

It's in the first post: "I provide an online course which is how I make my money, I’ve been doing this for about a year now, I’m also self employed and registered with HMRC, when making my bank account I also put in I’m self employed."

whitesmith

It is probably against the T&C of your personal current account to put business transactions through it, although I have always thought it harsh to close an account on this basis without at least giving the account holder a chance to rectify the situation.

There may be other factors in play eg customers complaints etc.

I would recommend that you keep your future personal and business banking not only separate but at different institutions.

I would be very surprised if you did not get your £9k Uni loan money back at some point, so try not to worry about that too much.

colsten

whitesmith said:

It is probably against the T&C of your personal current account to put business transactions through it

It is definitely against the T&Cs of personal current accounts to use them for business purposes.

whitesmith

Well there is no such T&C in my current account (First Direct).

sheramber

whitesmith said:

Well there is no such T&C in my current account (First Direct).

  https://www1.firstdirect.com/content/dam/fsdt/en/documents/pdf/fdAccTandC.pdf
page 4 
About our terms

whitesmith

Thanks for that Sheramber

jonesMUFCforever

Noticed the first time poster has not returned - well not under his or her username anyway - whilst the thread mushrooms about this and that - having a good laugh probably.

HobgoblinBT

Your account activity has triggered the review. When your circumstances change it is always a good idea to update your details with your bank.  These days, all accounts are monitored for suspicious transactions which are reviewed against the customer data supplied by the customer.  As a personal customer a bank expects to see personal transactions, such as wages, direct debits for regular expenses, contactless payments etc, but not business transactions. As a student the bank expects to see student funding and payments out for regular bills and student related expenditure.  Personal accounts should not have business activity, even for self employed customers.  Most banks require businesses to be run through business accounts, so that any Financial crime vetting is carried out against business data and also because most banks charge for services supplied to businesses.

Your account has personal transactions, a student loan and business transactions, activity that a successful fraudster or a money mule might exhibit.  

The bank will ask the question, is this account for a worker, a student or a business?  It has transactions for all three, so is not consistent with the data held for a personal customer observing the bank’s terms and conditions.  When something doesn’t make sense to a bank they will ask the question, is financial crime involved, and if they can’t find the transactions consistent with the customer data to hand, ie what you have told the, then they will consider the account may be being used for incorrect purposes and freeze it.

As to the way forward I suggest that you open a business account with another bank and a separate personal bank account.

Assuming that you are not a fraudster, I trust that the above is of use to you.

CRISPIANNE3

jonesMUFCforever said:

Noticed the first time poster has not returned - well not under his or her username anyway - whilst the thread mushrooms about this and that - having a good laugh probably.

Probably one of those students in lockdown and just bored.

Exodi

aqeeb said:

I’m also self employed and registered with HMRC, when making my bank account I also put in I’m self employed. 

aqeeb said:

I was also told that I can’t accept payments into my bank as a business BUT I’m self employed and haven’t registered as a business so this was pretty confusing. 

So which is it?

Colour me cynical but I also find the vague mention of online courses suspcicious. It obviously puts a whole different slant on the thread if your online courses are about 'how to get better at Fortnite' or whatever than 'how to duplicate a bank card'.