Savings with a CIFAS marker?

ashxcg

Hi! 

So when I was a student I stupidly fell for one of those ‘squaring’ scams which turns out to be in hindsight pretty obvious money laundering. Santander reported my to CIFAS and I had my account with them as well as my HSBC shut down. I don’t need to be told how stupid I am etc. just looking for some advice.

I use Monzo as my main account but obviously can’t open a bank elsewhere due to the CIFAS, I think I got it in 2019 so I’ll have a couple years left of it on my file. But I want to open a LISA - to my surprise I was able to open an account for this with Moneybox, but had expected them to refuse me due to the CIFAS. I recently tried to open a Chase account as my dad sent me the free £20 referral code but got refused for that so I think it’s definitely still on my file. Just wondering if anybody knows whether Moneybox will check at a later point and close my account or something? Ideally someone with experience of same thing? I want a LISA as HMRC/the government add 25% on top of your savings and you can only withdraw when buying a house so will work a lot better for me than anything I can do with my Monzo, but weary of paying anything into it in case they shut it down and don’t give me my money back (is that even allowed or would they have to return funds if closing account?). Did consider maybe since it’s just savings rather than a proper bank with a card etc. maybe it doesn’t matter??

TIA!

Missmarple

Why don't you get a copy of your credit file and see what's on there. You can work through it one step at a time. CIFAS doesn't have a set time. It can be as little as a year and you can ask them to take it off as there has been no further breaches etc. 

sassy_one

Missmarple said:

Why don't you get a copy of your credit file and see what's on there. You can work through it one step at a time. CIFAS doesn't have a set time. It can be as little as a year and you can ask them to take it off as there has been no further breaches etc. 

Completely wrong information 🙄

You cannot ask for it to be taken off just because you haven't done anything further! It doesn't work that way.

Credit file won't show any CIFAS marker unless it's Protective Registration, you need to do a SAR to CIFAS.

CIFAS do have time limits, with the maximum being 6 years.


Please get your information right before posting in future giving posters wrong information doesn't help anyone.