Santander frozen account - spoken to fraud dept but they can't say how long it will be frozen for.

woolythoughts

This is on behalf of my mother ............. I can't see what she's done wrong either.  Maybe I'm too close to it and there is something obvious.

_________________________________________

Or indeed what it is I'm supposed to have done that is wrong:

We have a family business.  My daughter and I are share holders with the two of us plus my son in law being directors.  The business account is held with Starling.  One of my personal accounts is with Santander and I use it solely for transactions to and from the company - makes tax returns a lot easier if I can identify the transactions from my incomes etc.  I've had this account for several years.

Periodically, I might transfer some money from this account to my daughter/son in law's joint account to help them out.  All tax is correctly paid and accounted for.

Donkeys years ago I leant my son in law some money for a car.    When I say leant, I didn't particularly want it back, but said he could give it back to me when he retired.   he got his retirement through las Friday.

Now, my daughter is changing her car and decided on a small electric car.  Given the tax breaks on electric cars it made sense to buy it through the company and pay the BIK tax on it.  Perfectly good situation.  However, there was not sufficient cash in the company to pay for it.

My daughter paid in 15K via a capital contribution to the company and I said I'd do the same.  we are 50% share holders so to keep the shareholdings equal, it made sense to do so.

 My son in law said, he'd pay me back 15K of the money I gave him years ago.  Yesterday morning he did that, then mid morning I tried to transfer it into the company.  This was blocked.

I eventually managed to speak to the fraud department and along with asking me in excess of 30 times if I was sure I wasn't being conned into doing this (the questions were all different but amounted to the same thing), they were very focused on:

1. Why was he paying me the money - explained the above
2. When did I lend it to him as they could not see that transaction - I explained it was long before I had a Santander bank account
3. How come he was paying money back to me when I transferred money to his account earlier in the month - well apart from wanting to keep the accounting separate and have clear narratives on the relevant journals I the accounts

There were many other questions along the same lines.

After an hour on the phone, I was told this information would be passed to the team and they would in their own time scales getback to me.  in the mean time, the account is frozen.  Ironically I've transferred 15K from one of my other accounts with a different bank to the company with no issues.

ki'm trying hard to see what it is I'm supposed to have done wrong.

Daliah

As always, all she can do is wait for the investigation to conclude.

sheramber

A large sum of money transferred in and then out again soon after raises money laundering flags.

Notepad_Phil

I agree that it sounds as though your mother has done nothing wrong. Unfortunately it seems as though a series of highish value transactions has raised the suspicions of the behind the scenes algorithms in one way or another. Whether that's because they are worried of possible money laundering or because they think your mother is being duped into sending money is open to debate, but as Daliah says above, all she can now do is wait for the investigation to complete.

born_again

woolythoughts said:

This is on behalf of my mother ............. I can't see what she's done wrong either.  Maybe I'm too close to it and there is something obvious.

_________________________________________

Or indeed what it is I'm supposed to have done that is wrong:

We have a family business.  My daughter and I are share holders with the two of us plus my son in law being directors.  The business account is held with Starling.  One of my personal accounts is with Santander and I use it solely for transactions to and from the company - makes tax returns a lot easier if I can identify the transactions from my incomes etc.  I've had this account for several years.

Periodically, I might transfer some money from this account to my daughter/son in law's joint account to help them out.  All tax is correctly paid and accounted for.

Donkeys years ago I leant my son in law some money for a car.    When I say leant, I didn't particularly want it back, but said he could give it back to me when he retired.   he got his retirement through las Friday.

Now, my daughter is changing her car and decided on a small electric car.  Given the tax breaks on electric cars it made sense to buy it through the company and pay the BIK tax on it.  Perfectly good situation.  However, there was not sufficient cash in the company to pay for it.

My daughter paid in 15K via a capital contribution to the company and I said I'd do the same.  we are 50% share holders so to keep the shareholdings equal, it made sense to do so.

 My son in law said, he'd pay me back 15K of the money I gave him years ago.  Yesterday morning he did that, then mid morning I tried to transfer it into the company.  This was blocked.

I eventually managed to speak to the fraud department and along with asking me in excess of 30 times if I was sure I wasn't being conned into doing this (the questions were all different but amounted to the same thing), they were very focused on:

1. Why was he paying me the money - explained the above
2. When did I lend it to him as they could not see that transaction - I explained it was long before I had a Santander bank account
3. How come he was paying money back to me when I transferred money to his account earlier in the month - well apart from wanting to keep the accounting separate and have clear narratives on the relevant journals I the accounts

There were many other questions along the same lines.

After an hour on the phone, I was told this information would be passed to the team and they would in their own time scales getback to me.  in the mean time, the account is frozen.  Ironically I've transferred 15K from one of my other accounts with a different bank to the company with no issues.

ki'm trying hard to see what it is I'm supposed to have done wrong.

When you say "I" is this referring to your mother or you? Given your status in the company.
So this is a personal account, but used for some company business? > One of my personal accounts is with Santander and I use it solely for transactions to and from the company <
So is the account that has been frozen? Personal or business acc?

woolythoughts

Hi, I asked her to write it all down and then I copied it here....... it her account that has been frozen.

The frozen account is her personal one that she uses solely to receive expense, dividend and salary payments from our limited company.  Any money she's put into the company over the years has gone through this account also.

She has another account for her full time job and her pension goes into a third account.  They are both in different third party banks.

She finds it less confusing to keep her money in silos.

Futuristic

It's normal with Santander since last >6months. They seem to have high fraud rate so blocks get triggered easily and they can't cope. Unblocks such as these can only be done by their "back office" team and not the person on the phone.

I was blocked from making transfers whilst they "investigated" for over 1.5 weeks, I raised a complaint to escalate the issue which was resolved 2 days later and was given compensation.  

wiseonesomeofthetime

I think there is a strong possibility that their concern is that your mother's account has become a mule account.

All that she can do is wait for them to complete their investigation, as other posters have suggested.

woolythoughts

Even though the source of the money on is either family (on this case) or the company she’s a director and shareholder of?

Thrugelmir

Why didn't your son in law transfer the money directly to the company bank account?  

Can understand the bank's concern. With a sudden £15k deposit and an immediate £15k transfer out. All too convenient and neatly explained away......

woolythoughts

Because the money had to come from a shareholder to be a capital contribution and keep the shareholdings 50/50 with me and my mum.

If my husband had put the money in directly himself it would have made him a shareholder or would have to have been a loan to the company.

we decided he’d pay back what she leant him years ago to enable it to happen otherwise she would have effectively bought us two cars - one years ago and half of the one we’re buying now.

the latter is effectively the situation we’re in now as she paid the money in from another account of hers.  Once those funds get released, it will square everything up.  Assuming they do.