Barclays Internal Scam??

eskbanker

GTR_King said:

my bad mate meant to say debts I know he made no hint of debts, 

but that's usually why banks take your money so lets see what op says 

Other posts on this thread suggest that the bank didn't actually take OP's money at all, but just artificially made it look that way temporarily while investigating something suspicious.

GTR_King

yeah mate could be that lets see what op says 

seems odd for Barclays to do that

NeilRed

Thanks for the responses.  There are no debts involved and it was a pre-authorised but never used overdraft that was emptied along with cash in the account.  I suspect now it is AML as I made a few cash deposits last month from a legitimate foreign account funded by a legitimate overseas government pension.  As the exchange rate was favourable I wanted to take advantage.  Sad thing is if I had been asked the question I can supply bank statements etc. confirming legitimacy.  Barclays seem to shoot first then ask questions a few weeks later?  I contacted the Financial Ombudsman today who has already opened a complaint. Why did it take therm 6 days to admit it was Barclays involved (rather than an external scammer) causing loads of stress and changing all my pw etc. on all my accounts. Not good customer service...  

eskbanker

NeilRed said:

I suspect now it is AML as I made a few cash deposits last month from a legitimate foreign account funded by a legitimate overseas government pension.

Literally cash deposits (as opposed to electronic funds transfers)?

mab3000

If it is to do with an AML investigation then Barclays wouldn’t have be able to give you much information at the start of it, as giving you too much information could be tipping you off about it, which banks are not allowed to do. They might contact you asking you for evidence or an explanation about funds during the investigation, but would not be able to tell you what or why they are investigating. 

What is unusual about this is that Barclays have removed the funds rather than just put a freeze on the accounts, which leads me to think there is more to this than we are being told. 

Who suggested to you that it was a scam and got you to change your passwords?

I’m assuming you raised a complaint with Barclays first as you would have needed to before taking the complaint to the financial ombudsman. What was the outcome of that?  

Ed-1

mab3000 said:

What is unusual about this is that Barclays have removed the funds rather than just put a freeze on the accounts, which leads me to think there is more to this than we are being told. 

It's how Barclays does it. They say it is to "safeguard" the funds. Presumably certain transactions may slip through the net if the account was simply frozen with under-investigation funds left in it. Even branch staff have been known to get processes wrong and override account blocks to allow withdrawals etc. Removing all funds removes the opportunity of mistakes.