Tide Business Account problems

BigSteveLondon

Hi Everyone. I apologise in advance for the long post, but I'm hoping someone on here can advise me on this matter.

Although I have been self employed for many years, I recently set up an e-commerce business which meant I had to form a LTD company to separate the entity from my personal.

While researching business bank account options I came across many good reviews for Tide Business Accounts, and as they were offering a free LTD company formation option I decided to go for this.

I applied for the account December 20th, and received the subsequent 'welcome' email. Also on that date I received an email from Tide saying:
"We’ve got great news, Xxxx LTD is now officially registered with Companies House and we have successfully set up your business current account."

A few days later I received a bank card in the post, in the paperwork it said I should register the card with the app. 

With all the madness of trying to set up the business in time for a New Years Day launch, I didn't get around to registering the card until December 28th, exactly 8 days after the account was set up, and around 5 days after I received the card. When I attempted to register the card via the app I received an error. I tried a few more times with the same result, so contacted customer support via the app. 

I received 2 responses from someone called Aiden, the first acknowledging my message, the second (a much later) informing me that my account has been “placed on a temporary pause” and I would not be able to send or receive payments. Following further questioning over the next few days (as they would sometimes take 48hrs to respond), various other advisors (Cyrus, Joshua, & Jason) responded in the message timeline to ask me to ‘be patient’, yet offering me no further information other than to say that "the dedicated team will email me”.

On January 6th I made an official complaint about the service I have received to complaints@tide.co. I received a reply 2 days later (January 8th) with a reference number and templated response "...sorry to hear you're unhappy... blah blah blah... Please bear with us"

On January 11th I received an email from Tide's complaints team saying "We contacted you on 6 January 2022 to acknowledge receipt of your complaint. Unfortunately, we’re continuing to investigate your concerns so are unable to issue our response at this time."

At 3:40pm today (January 19th), 13 days after my email to complaints, and nearly 3 weeks since my initial contact with customer support, I received an email from 'The Team at Tide" saying "We have completed a full review of your account and regrettably we are no longer able to offer you our services here at Tide. Therefore we will be closing your account with immediate effect. You can find more information for the reasons why we close accounts in our terms and conditions under section 23"

Furious, I checked their terms and conditions paying particular attention to section 23. There is nothing in there saying that if I make a complaint I can have my account terminated. They have not given me any details of their 'investigation', I've just been told to be patient throughout the process. You can't speak with anyone on the phone, you can't have 1 dedicated person to deal with, and the responses (far from timely) seem to be cut & paste jobs to comply with financial regulations.

In the meantime I have money sitting online from sales I can't put into a business account.

My question to the forum is am I missing something here? I can't see what I did wrong.
I tried to register a card THEY sent me and this is the result. I feel like I want to complain to a higher body for the shoddy way I have been treated, but reading other posts about Tide I think I may have dodged a bullet.
But will them 'terminating' my account impact me personally? My credit is really good, and I'm going to have to apply for another business account, probably one from a real bank instead.

Sorry for the long post, but this is so frustrating. Any advice would be hugely welcome.

eskbanker

Any financial institution can choose to terminate their relationship with a customer at any time, but the fact that they've done so with immediate effect suggest that they're relying on 23.3 rather than 23.2, and from what you've posted there's nothing obvious that would justify this, although that doesn't necessarily mean that they've done this specifically because of your complaint.

All you can do really is to await their final response to the complaint and if you're unhappy with it (or it doesn't appear within eight weeks) then you can escalate to the Financial Ombudsman Service, as explained in clause 24.

Closure shouldn't have any impact beyond having to find another account....

BigSteveLondon

Thankyou Eskbanker for your response.

Absolutely nothing obvious under 23.3. 23.4 states:

1. 23.4  Instead of us exercising our termination right in respect of any of the events listed above, we may alternatively suspend or restrict your Tide Platform Account, (resulting in suspension or a restriction of the Tide Business Account or Tide Card(s)), or block your ability to use any particular feature of the Services on immediate notice to you pending resolution of our concern.

Maybe that's what they're relying on. Just being able to terminate whenever they want, for what ever reason.

Interestingly I've just been over to TrustPilot, and it seems they have form for this sort of thing (and a lot more). But they seem to respond to messages there, so I have posted this up on Trustpilot to get their attention at least.

Also thanks for the info about my credit report, that's one less worry.

I have already converted my personal Paypal account into a Paypal Business account (after speaking with their customer service), so I'm going to see if that will suffice for now.

lr1277

I have a cautious nature, so I would be checking your company was acturally set up properly and registered at Companies House. I imagined you would have to do this because you would need the details to set up a new business account, but I see that you have already done that.

Also I imagine the creation/registration details are required for tax returns, vat registration etc. You may already have a handle on this already, so good luck to you..

eskbanker

BigSteveLondon said:

23.4 states:

1. 23.4  Instead of us exercising our termination right in respect of any of the events listed above, we may alternatively suspend or restrict your Tide Platform Account, (resulting in suspension or a restriction of the Tide Business Account or Tide Card(s)), or block your ability to use any particular feature of the Services on immediate notice to you pending resolution of our concern.

Maybe that's what they're relying on. Just being able to terminate whenever they want, for what ever reason.

I think that the purpose of 23.4 is to give them the opportunity to buy some time on a without prejudice basis, i.e. if they believe that 23.3 applies but aren't ready to push the button immediately, so I don't think it actually grants them any additional rights as such but is simply an option to put things on hold while investigating.

However, their earlier notification to you "informing me that my account has been “placed on a temporary pause” and I would not be able to send or receive payments" was perhaps them acting under this clause, i.e. they may have decided they didn't want to continue with you long before the complaint was actually made, which might explain why they were so evasive about timescales in your early dealings with them last month....

BigSteveLondon

eskbanker said:

BigSteveLondon said:

23.4 states:

1. 23.4  Instead of us exercising our termination right in respect of any of the events listed above, we may alternatively suspend or restrict your Tide Platform Account, (resulting in suspension or a restriction of the Tide Business Account or Tide Card(s)), or block your ability to use any particular feature of the Services on immediate notice to you pending resolution of our concern.

Maybe that's what they're relying on. Just being able to terminate whenever they want, for what ever reason.

I think that the purpose of 23.4 is to give them the opportunity to buy some time on a without prejudice basis, i.e. if they believe that 23.3 applies but aren't ready to push the button immediately, so I don't think it actually grants them any additional rights as such but is simply an option to put things on hold while investigating.

However, their earlier notification to you "informing me that my account has been “placed on a temporary pause” and I would not be able to send or receive payments" was perhaps them acting under this clause, i.e. they may have decided they didn't want to continue with you long before the complaint was actually made, which might explain why they were so evasive about timescales in your early dealings with them last month....

But at that stage my only contact with them was to register the card. I haven't actually made any transactions myself. My Paypal account put 1p into the Tide account to ensure it was legitimate, and that is the only activity on the account to date.

So my request for help to register the card triggered them to 'pause my account', then the evasive activity... CRAZY!
But I would still like to know what the closure was based on, that's all.

Guess what, Tide have responded to my TrustPilot review (16mins ago) LOL. A standard 'cut & paste' job I've seen on other bad reviews, and requesting further information which I have provided.

BigSteveLondon

"I have a cautious nature, so I would be checking your company was acturally set up properly and registered at Companies House."

lr1277
Thanks for the response. I have received the details directly from Companies House, but I will definitely double check everything after this experience.

born_again

I would say that there is something that they did not like in the application.
Usually it's all automated at the start hence the emails to say LTD is set up & card sent out.
Then someone has manually looked at the application and a issue has been flagged. Which would be why you got a error on registering the card.
Then the mention of  "temporary pause" would confirm that they were not happy with something. Of course they would not tell you that is "Tipping Off"
They have followed the timings for complaints (remember they have 8 weeks)
So in reality they have declined your account & no end of complaining is going to get it open. They simply do not want to do business with you.

"There is nothing in there saying that if I make a complaint I can have my account terminated. " 

I think you are barking up the wrong tree here. The fact you complained has nothing to do with them terminating your account. As it is clear there was a problem before you complained.

End of the day even if you went to FOS they would not change the result or say they need to compensate you.

" I think I may have dodged a bullet." Is the way to look at it & move on with your new project.

eskbanker

BigSteveLondon said:
So my request for help to register the card triggered them to 'pause my account', then the evasive activity... CRAZY!

That seems unlikely - chances are that, as @born_again implies, they'd already decided not to continue by the time you sought to register the card, hence the errors you experienced when trying to do so via the app.

BigSteveLondon

Well @eskbanker and @born_again might be onto something there it seems. They may have had an issue from the start, and although they were happy to send me emails and info about upgrading, they may have had something else going on in the background.

I received this earlier today:

Hi Steve
​
The terms and conditions which you agreed to outline that Tide may decide to close an account with two months’ notice, and in certain circumstances immediately. We have opted for the latter and have processed this in accordance with the account terms.

Tide is entitled to close an account just as a member may close an account without providing a reason. I appreciate you want to know the reasons why we have closed your account, but I should explain that we aren’t required to give a specific reason. Tide is under no obligation to provide reasons for an account closure in accordance with the relevant provisions of the terms and conditions as well as the regulations we abide by.

If you are not happy with the answer and if you wish to raise a complaint I can do
so on your behalf and our dedicated team will contact you .

Kind regards
The Team at Tide


I still think they should be required to state what the reason for closure was, because it may fall foul of other UK legislation such as particular discrimination for example. But any business has a right to take on what business they want, I'm now happy I'm no longer with them as I have read multiple stories where accounts with lots of funds have been 'temporarily paused' and caused the business owners major distress. I should have gone through TrustPilot properly before registering. A lesson learnt.

Thanks again all for the comments.

born_again

I still think they should be required to state what the reason for closure was, because it may fall foul of other UK legislation such as particular discrimination for example. But any business has a right to take on what business they want, I'm now happy I'm no longer with them as I have read multiple stories where accounts with lots of funds have been 'temporarily paused' and caused the business owners major distress. I should have gone through TrustPilot properly before registering. A lesson learnt.

Thanks again all for the comments.

Like anywhere that refuses you entry they do not have to state why.
They can also fall foul of the law by telling you the reason, if you were say using the account to launder cash.

If you want to have a idea, then complain. But even then they do not have to give one & if it went to FOS they can not force them either.



Thanks for coming back 👍