Pockit prepaid ‘bank account’ frozen for over 4 months

yt5556

So my girlfriend opened a prepaid account with the company Pockit as she’s an unbanked customer. 
The account got locked on April 27th and remains locked. Due to having no bank, any wages she receives have to be paid into a bank account owned by her mum who is quite controlling at times so it’s not ideal. She’s going to university this September and has tried to sort out for months now. I have been a long time subscriber to the Martin money tips emails and thought this is a good last resort to get any guidance on what we can do to resolve this as it doesn’t seem as if Pockit will unblock the account any time soon. 
The account initially got locked as I got my girlfriend to send me a £500 loan to buy a Louis Vuitton teddy bear which does sound quite out of the ordinary. I’m 19 years old and do reselling which is just buying popular items that sell out and then selling them for a higher price on websites such as eBay or stockX. I mainly buy limited shoes such as Jordans to sell them on for a profit but I also sell other things too. For example, you may have seen on the news about people selling PS5s for high prices as they were (and still are) sold out due to production issues surrounding the chip shortage in China. Basically that’s what I do and I’m part of on online forum on discord which provides information on release dates and what sites to buy from, which is why not everyone knows what products are best to buy. Although some people think it’s unethical, it’s completely legal and is just capitalising on popular products where demand exceeds supply. I just thought I’d explain it as well as I could so you understand it’s legitimate. 
So in short, I borrowed some money to buy a Louis Vuitton plush as i had sold some shoes on ebay but you don’t get paid instantly so although I could in theory afford the Louis Vuitton item, I needed to borrow money for a day or two before the payment from the shoes I sold came into my bank account. I planned to then just pay my girlfriend back as soon as I received the money for the shoes I had sold, and then I would sell the Louis Vuitton bear for profit at a later date. 
I can provide receipts for the teddy bear and can probably find the information for the shoe sales too. By my girlfriend lending me the £500, I must have triggered a fraud check or something on her Pockit account as they froze the account a day or two later. They then asked her to provide information for the transaction which she did, and I sent her the necessary screenshots and receipts to prove that she lent me money for the Louis Vuitton purchase. She also verified her identity and I think they then emailed back asking her for some more information which she provided. After that she waited a couple weeks but heard nothing and then after a month or so she contacted the financial ombudsman service to try and find out why they hadn’t responded to her. They did manage to contact Pockit (I think it was the parent company that they contacted) and Pockit said they’d provide the information about the account freezing but then never got back to them. Within the last week or so, the financial ombudsman service employee said that he’d escalate the issue to someone higher up as he’d been unable to get any response from the company for a long time but I’m unsure as to how long it will take and of course I want this resolved as soon as possible as it’s already been 4 months with basically no updates. 
This isn’t an isolated incident; recently there has been several articles by the BBC, the times, which and more about Pockit customers being locked out of their accounts. I’m unsure if you’ve had anyone else contact you for this and if you have found any resolutions. My girlfriend is happy to provide any additional information about her account getting frozen if that would help. Also, I saw that some banks offer compensation if they unfairly lock your account for a long period. Do you know if this is a legality or just a good will gesture? I was wondering as having access to no bank account for over 4 months has been quite stressful for my girlfriend and has been very impractical also. 
It might be helpful for you to know why she is unbanked and I also have a few other questions about being unbanked. I sent my girlfriend your article on the best banks for unbanked customers and she applied to the Co-operative bank but hasn’t heard back - she should probably apply to some others. The reason she is unbanked is because when she was 16 she lent her account to a girl who did fraud on it and she then got a CIFAS. This has stopped her from getting a regular bank account. I was wondering if it’s still possible to open a joint account with her as I have a good credit store and no bad banking history?  

Sorry for the very long message but it seems like we have tried everything and don’t really have any answers so if you have any suggestions or other sources we can look into, then that would be greatly appreciated. 

Kind regards,

Joseph.

colsten

Your poor girlfriend.  Never mind her controlling mum. Her real issue seems to be a controlling boyfriend. 
 
She should resolve to not get involved in any of your dealings, and get herself a prepaid account elsewhere. Pockit is closing down, anyway, as I am sure you know, but there are plenty of similar pre-paid "bank" accounts around, as well as basic accounts.

If your girlfriend chooses to continue to help you do shady deals, she will risk to have further accounts locked/closed. So do you, and you obviously know it as why would you want her to risk her accounts.

eskbanker

yt5556 said:

The reason she is unbanked is because when she was 16 she lent her account to a girl who did fraud on it and she then got a CIFAS. This has stopped her from getting a regular bank account. I was wondering if it’s still possible to open a joint account with her as I have a good credit store and no bad banking history?

How old is she now?  If she's under 22 then the CIFAS fraud marker will still be in force, effectively preventing her from opening (or being added to) any bank account, sole or joint, basic or otherwise, although I don't know if the Pockit freeze is connected to this.  She can submit a subject access request to CIFAS to obtain details of the marker and its expiry date (six years after placement): https://www.cifas.org.uk/dsar

Zanderman

I'm not sure why people have jumped on you so hard in the initial replies [now edited out by forum team] - except that your post does come across as you being the controlling one, rather than your GF's mum. 

The details of your relatively unethical trading activities are, probably, irrelevant to the discussion anyway.  It reads as if you got the £500 so presumably you are not missing money?

Though you don't say, unless I missed it, whether your GF is missing money - which is surely the key point.  For her at least.  How much money is/was in her pockit account?  Is it a lot or a little?  And have you now paid her back the £500?  

You also haven't really explained why, if she has had no access to pockit (which isn't a bank, so to use comparisons to bank account freezes may not be relevant) she hasn't simply opened another prepaid account elsewhere?  Which is, surely, the obvious solution, certainly in the short term.

As for the pockit outcome, you (or rather, I trust, she) has gone to the ombudsman, it's being escalated, and so you (she) can now only wait.  No-one on this forum can second guess the outcome.