How do I minimise the risk of having my bank account locked?

blue.peter

Thrugelmir said:

Unless you are a money mule or conducting some other illegal activity, or contravening the terms of the account i.e. running a business through a personal account. You've no need to concern yourself.

In the long term, I'm sure you're right. But it's the short term that worries me. Even though I'm not doing anything at all inappropriate, there's a risk that TSB might think that I could be. If this happens, how long will it take me to persuade them that I'm not, and to unlock the account?

Sea_Shell

We're in a similar boat.  Expecting a large credit on a maturing 5 year savings account, into our Santander account.

The original deposit cheque was drawn on this account, so they hold the audit trail.

We want to almost immediately invest into our ISAs and buy some Premium Bonds (all via debit card), plus move £5000 into my Club Lloyds.

I hope they don't play silly buggers!!

Thrugelmir

blue.peter said:

Thrugelmir said:

Unless you are a money mule or conducting some other illegal activity, or contravening the terms of the account i.e. running a business through a personal account. You've no need to concern yourself.

In the long term, I'm sure you're right. But it's the short term that worries me. Even though I'm not doing anything at all inappropriate, there's a risk that TSB might think that I could be. If this happens, how long will it take me to persuade them that I'm not, and to unlock the account?

If we all spent time worrying what might happen every day. We wouldn't even get out of bed. Money transferred from a highly regulated organisation to another regulated professional business. Is unlikely to trigger any alarm bells. Unless you've conducted similar activity not long ago. Sophisticated software that uses algoritms detects patterns of unusual activity/connections to parties of interest. Events aren't as random as you suspect. 

[Deleted User]

Thrugelmir said:

blue.peter said:

Thrugelmir said:

Unless you are a money mule or conducting some other illegal activity, or contravening the terms of the account i.e. running a business through a personal account. You've no need to concern yourself.

In the long term, I'm sure you're right. But it's the short term that worries me. Even though I'm not doing anything at all inappropriate, there's a risk that TSB might think that I could be. If this happens, how long will it take me to persuade them that I'm not, and to unlock the account?

If we all spent time worrying what might happen every day. We wouldn't even get out of bed. Money transferred from a highly regulated organisation to another regulated professional business. Is unlikely to trigger any alarm bells. Unless you've conducted similar activity not long ago. Sophisticated software that uses algoritms detects patterns of unusual activity/connections to parties of interest. Events aren't as random as you suspect. 

I'm curious as to what you're basing this on - experience of working in banking, data that you have access to, a detailed understanding of the software being used, etc. I'm asking because I literally had the fraud team in one case tell me almost word for word that their system "is sometimes a bit random and nobody fully understands how it works".

Thrugelmir

Deleted_User said:

Thrugelmir said:

blue.peter said:

Thrugelmir said:

Unless you are a money mule or conducting some other illegal activity, or contravening the terms of the account i.e. running a business through a personal account. You've no need to concern yourself.

In the long term, I'm sure you're right. But it's the short term that worries me. Even though I'm not doing anything at all inappropriate, there's a risk that TSB might think that I could be. If this happens, how long will it take me to persuade them that I'm not, and to unlock the account?

If we all spent time worrying what might happen every day. We wouldn't even get out of bed. Money transferred from a highly regulated organisation to another regulated professional business. Is unlikely to trigger any alarm bells. Unless you've conducted similar activity not long ago. Sophisticated software that uses algoritms detects patterns of unusual activity/connections to parties of interest. Events aren't as random as you suspect. 

I'm curious as to what you're basing this on - experience of working in banking, data that you have access to, a detailed understanding of the software being used, etc. I'm asking because I literally had the fraud team in one case tell me almost word for word that their system "is sometimes a bit random and nobody fully understands how it works".

If everybody knew the system parameters then the word would soon spread as to how to circumnavigate and remain undetected 

Chloe_G

Are these checks on moving large sums relatively new?  I have moved large sums through my bank account quite often as I move my savings to better deals, and have to withdraw the money to my named current account.  I got a couple of texts from the bank years ago to confirm it was correct and just had to reply YES but apart from that, they've never queried it.

[Deleted User]

Chloe_G said:

Are these checks on moving large sums relatively new?  I have moved large sums through my bank account quite often as I move my savings to better deals, and have to withdraw the money to my named current account.  I got a couple of texts from the bank years ago to confirm it was correct and just had to reply YES but apart from that, they've never queried it.

The old text to confirm things are fine, what we're talking about here are account freezes. When it happened to me I basically got completely locked out of my account and told to phone a call centre, I was passed to the fraud team and had to go through a very long process (about 2 hours) of them asking questions and wrangling with the system to reopen it. Some people are less fortunate and are told they have to go into a branch to fix it or to provide proof of the source of funds. It's a major pain when it happens to you, especially if you rely on the account and don't have a backup. It's happened to me twice so I'm now pretty wary of it.

According to the FT, there is definitely some evidence that account freezes like this are becoming more common due to the rise in fraud over the last few years.

northwalesd

Deleted_User said:

Deleted_User said:

If it's coming from an ISA, I wouldn't be concerned. It's when you receive large or odd transactions from individuals that banks tend to worry.

I know this is anecdotal, but the fraud prevention measures appear to be a lot more sensitive than this in my experience. I've twice had accounts locked in the last year just from making transfers between my own accounts that were all under £5,000. I managed to unlock them but it took several hours on the phone each time. These weren't particularly odd transactions, I was simply moving savings from one account to another after an interest rate cut. It was just a case of computer says no and even the person at Lloyds that I spoke to the first time couldn't really understand why it had been flagged.

I'm not complaining about this incidentally, I understand why banks are trying to stop fraud, I'm just saying that the OP is probably right to be concerned that this could be an issue.

I think that. to a certain extent, backs up teh [post fro zx81 as your transfers are ccoming from individual accounts rather than a financial institution.

FWIW I transferred £15k from a S&S ISA into my current account last year to part fund a house extension, not a peep from my bank (Lloyds).

Missus_Hyde

Deleted_User said:

Deleted_User said:

If it's coming from an ISA, I wouldn't be concerned. It's when you receive large or odd transactions from individuals that banks tend to worry.

I know this is anecdotal, but the fraud prevention measures appear to be a lot more sensitive than this in my experience. I've twice had accounts locked in the last year just from making transfers between my own accounts that were all under £5,000. I managed to unlock them but it took several hours on the phone each time. These weren't particularly odd transactions, I was simply moving savings from one account to another after an interest rate cut. It was just a case of computer says no and even the person at Lloyds that I spoke to the first time couldn't really understand why it had been flagged.

I'm not complaining about this incidentally, I understand why banks are trying to stop fraud, I'm just saying that the OP is probably right to be concerned that this could be an issue.

I understand totally where you're coming from and have in the past had comparatively small amounts of money queried by Lloyds. 

However, I've found that by ringing them and telling them that I intend to move a large sum of money seems to work well and in fact on the last occasion I could hardly believe how helpful the girl on the phone turned out to be. Not only did she answer the phone extremely quickly ( I have in the past been kept hanging on for at least 40 minutes 🙄) but when I explained what I intended to do, she not only said she would put a marker on the account
 to say that I would be transferring the money, but also suggested that she set the payee details up for me in advance and check the name on the account etc. ( which she correctly predicted would allow the money to be transferred without any query.)

Consequently, when I transferred the money a week or so later, it went with no problem. I found it so refreshing to find someone who a) understood the possible problem and b) actually managed to sort it so efficiently.😊

EssexExile

Chloe_G said:

Are these checks on moving large sums relatively new?  I have moved large sums through my bank account quite often as I move my savings to better deals, and have to withdraw the money to my named current account.  I got a couple of texts from the bank years ago to confirm it was correct and just had to reply YES but apart from that, they've never queried it.

It appears that if you do it quite often it isn't a problem, it's unusual money movement that raises flags. Like you I move quite large sums about regularly and don't have any problems, then I did two £500 payments in quick succession and got the "is this you?" text.