Co op account under investigation

Ndavid1

Hi all,
I opened a Co op cashminder account a few months ago to use for spending money, all was going fine until the 24th September where I attempted to make a card payment which was declined, I telephoned customer services and was told my account was under investigation though they couldn't tell me why. 
This has been over a month now and I have had no updates whatsoever, I just get told that its in a queue to be investigated, surely they can't be that busy?
They will not discuss the matter further nor will they allow me access to funds as they are not direct credits from employer/benefits, they are just funds transfered from myself and there is nothing untoward with the account whatsoever.
Are they legally allowed to do this without informing me of any justification, no one of my other accounts are affected so I'm assuming it's nothing to do with a third party. I have a 10 month old son to support and have spent around 2.5 hours on the phone trying to sort this out (most of which has been on hold) but still no success, just fobbed off with the same answer, if they told me why I could rectify the situation.
Does anyone have any advice?
I have put a complaint into the financial ombudsman but they say it may be 3 months before its looked at. 

DCFC79

Ndavid1 said:

Hi all,
I opened a Co op cashminder account a few months ago to use for spending money, all was going fine until the 24th September where I attempted to make a card payment which was declined, I telephoned customer services and was told my account was under investigation though they couldn't tell me why. 
This has been over a month now and I have had no updates whatsoever, I just get told that its in a queue to be investigated, surely they can't be that busy?
They will not discuss the matter further nor will they allow me access to funds as they are not direct credits from employer/benefits, they are just funds transfered from myself and there is nothing untoward with the account whatsoever.
Are they legally allowed to do this without informing me of any justification, no one of my other accounts are affected so I'm assuming it's nothing to do with a third party. I have a 10 month old son to support and have spent around 2.5 hours on the phone trying to sort this out (most of which has been on hold) but still no success, just fobbed off with the same answer, if they told me why I could rectify the situation.
Does anyone have any advice?
I have put a complaint into the financial ombudsman but they say it may be 3 months before its looked at. 

Yes the bank can and have done this, they will not tell you the why as I dont believe they are obliged to do so.

Who knows how many cases they have being worked on. If your confident your innocent then just sit it out. 

[Deleted User]

Ndavid1 said:

 still no success, just fobbed off with the same answer, if they told me why I could rectify the situation.

If they told you why, someone at the bank would probably be going to prison.

You're just going to need to wait, unfortunately.

Ndavid1

So they can just withold money with no justification/timescale?
It's not as if there is massive amount to investigate, the only transactions for it is one monthly transfer in and the money out is card payments, don't understand what there is to investigate. 

[Deleted User]

Their justification is that they are obliged to investigate suspicions of money laundering or misuse.

Investigations take a while as there are third parties involved to review. Banks are also understaffed due to a bug that's going round and overworked for the same reason.

jonesMUFCforever

The account was opened for 'spending' - I assume therefore you have another bank account which you can access?

Ergates

Ndavid1 said:

Are they legally allowed to do this without informing me of any justification,

Not only are they allowed to do this, they are legally obliged to.  The penalties for "tipping off" (i.e. telling someone that they're under investigation for money laundering) are steep.  

Thrugelmir

Ndavid1 said:

 no one of my other accounts are affected so I'm assuming it's nothing to do with a third party. 

How many bank accounts are you operating?

robatwork

It's a pain to you but look at it from their side. They don't see someone with a 10 month old to support.

They see an account which for "a reason" has been flagged up as possibly fraudulent. Could be a 3rd party report, suspicious transactions, links to a known fraudulent account, or bad luck. But the money in there could be from fraud. They can't release it until they know it isn't.

How much are you talking about?