Cashplus have restricted my business account since January 27th

neeeero

I intended to become an eBay and Amazon seller at the beginning of this year and consequently set up a limited company and opened a Cashplus business account. I opened my Cashplus account on the 10th of January and deposited £10,000.00 to the account on January 12th. On January 27th after weeks of looking for the right products to sell I bought some items on Alibaba for the total amount of £7500.00

1 hour later my account was restricted and I couldn’t log in or access any funds whatsoever, I e-mailed Cashplus immediately with Alibaba screenshots and explained that these were top rated Alibaba sellers that have been trading for more than 7 years with near perfect reviews. 

My e-mails were also answered with:

Unfortunately, we are unable to discuss account specifics via email for security purposes, any account queries would need to be dealt with via telephone.

Please contact our Customer Services team on 0330 024 0924 who will be able to assist you with your query.

So I called them and I’ve called them over 100 times and every time they say the same thing:

Customer Service Agent: Your account is under review

Me: When will the review finish

Customer Service Agent: We are unable to give you a time frame

After weeks of calling and e-mailing and filed a complaint through cash plus on February 17th and received a letter stating:

We will conclude our investigation on March 19th, I had some hope for this date, however when March 19th came they sent out another letter saying unfortunately we haven’t been able to conclude our investigation and ask you to wait till April 19th, I contacted financial ombudsman and they said they are unable to take this case until April 22nd because it would have been 8 weeks to the date of my first complaint then. 

On March 1st the Alibaba funds returned to my account and I knew this because you can check your balance through the phone calling system, however I am still restricted access to the funds and cannot login my online account or make any transfers.

I don’t know what to do now, I really need my funds because it is a lot of money for me, everytime I contact them they give me the run around.

tacpot12

They suspect you of money-laundering or fraud, and can neither release your funds nor tell you what it going on due to the law. Note that the National Crime Agency (NCA) can ask for the period that your funds are held to be extended for upto six months, so I would not be surprised if the 19th April date gets pushed out to 19th May and then 19th June. 

The Financial Ombudsman won't rule in your favour if the NCA have told the bank that your account needs to remain frozen.

You might review the information here to see if you want to take professional legal advice: Extending Moratorium Periods | Lawyers, Solicitors London (kingsleynapley.co.uk)  You might be able to avoid further extensions if you can suggest that the investigations are not being done with acceptable speed. 

Note that if your transactions are given a clean bill of health, you will not be able to seek compensation from your bank, unless you can show that they have been negligent in some way. 

If you want to do something, I would complain to the bank and mention that you will be suing them if you find evidence that it is they who have been dragging their feet, but I expect it is the NCA who are dragging their feet and no doubt claim to be short-staffed. However, no HighCourt judge should accept this as a reason to prevent your business from functioning.

I think your experience will help other potential importers/exporters to seek the right sort of Bank when looking to make offshore business purchases.

neeeero

tacpot12 said:

They suspect you of money-laundering or fraud, and can neither release your funds nor tell you what it going on due to the law. Note that the National Crime Agency (NCA) can ask for the period that your funds are held to be extended for upto six months, so I would not be surprised if the 19th April date gets pushed out to 19th May and then 19th June. 

The Financial Ombudsman won't rule in your favour if the NCA have told the bank that your account needs to remain frozen.

You might review the information here to see if you want to take professional legal advice: Extending Moratorium Periods | Lawyers, Solicitors London (kingsleynapley.co.uk)  You might be able to avoid further extensions if you can suggest that the investigations are not being done with acceptable speed. 

Note that if your transactions are given a clean bill of health, you will not be able to seek compensation from your bank, unless you can show that they have been negligent in some way. 

If you want to do something, I would complain to the bank and mention that you will be suing them if you find evidence that it is they who have been dragging their feet, but I expect it is the NCA who are dragging their feet and no doubt claim to be short-staffed. However, no HighCourt judge should accept this as a reason to prevent your business from functioning.

I think your experience will help other potential importers/exporters to seek the right sort of Bank when looking to make offshore business purchases.

Thank you for your detailed reply, it seems the NCA are looking into my account, I've lost hope of getting my funds anytime soon since cash plus are not giving me a single detail on this investigation. Thank you for the legal advice link, do you know any rough idea of how much this will cost me?

sheramber

Where did you transfer the £10,000 from?

neeeero

sheramber said:

Where did you transfer the £10,000 from?

My Halifax Current account 

born_again

Why did retailer refund the funds? 

neeeero

born_again said:

Why did retailer refund the funds? 

The retailer didn't, the transaction was rescinded by Cash Plus and returned back to my account