Intrusive questions by Building society

MarkFromCornwall

Daliah said:

That‘s how money gets laundered - small cash deposits into personal accounts. They are obliged under their licence terms to check the source of the cash.

The usual applies - you have nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide. So just tell them where the cash came from and all will be fine.

Does this often catch criminals laundering money?  For instance, are there cases where someone takes drugs money into their local building society, and is asked the source of their money, and answers honestly that it came from selling drugs?

theoretica

MarkFromCornwall said:

Daliah said:

That‘s how money gets laundered - small cash deposits into personal accounts. They are obliged under their licence terms to check the source of the cash.

The usual applies - you have nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide. So just tell them where the cash came from and all will be fine.

Does this often catch criminals laundering money?  For instance, are there cases where someone takes drugs money into their local building society, and is asked the source of their money, and answers honestly that it came from selling drugs?

Possibly not - but I bet there are occasions where the answer is 'um err, yeah, erm, um...'

ZeroSum

lr1277 said:

On the flip side, when sending money by internet banking, I am always asked the reason for the transfer. To pay a bill, send to family etc. Obviously the list created depends on what your bank wants to know. This question is asked when transferring very small amounts.

Out of the 10 banks I have current accounts with, its only santander & virgin who do this

Ergates

MarkFromCornwall said:

Daliah said:

That‘s how money gets laundered - small cash deposits into personal accounts. They are obliged under their licence terms to check the source of the cash.

The usual applies - you have nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide. So just tell them where the cash came from and all will be fine.

Does this often catch criminals laundering money?  For instance, are there cases where someone takes drugs money into their local building society, and is asked the source of their money, and answers honestly that it came from selling drugs?

Not like that, obviously, but the answers are recorded and used to build a behavior model that can.   Simple example:   Someone walking into multiple different branches on the same day depositing £500 and saying it's from selling something (or doing it multiple times a week at the same branch, etc), would raise a bit red flag.

If a case gets flagged to the NCA who have greater investigative, they could theoretically cross check cash deposits which were declared as coming from another accounts, with withdrawals. 

tightauldgit

I've paid decent cash sums into several banks recently and not been asked but used to get it all the time. Not sure if there are specific criteria that trigger them asking or if its just a random thing. 

The questions prior to transferring money online are I think more to do with protecting people from scammers 

wiseonesomeofthetime

Do the automated cash deposit machines in branches ask the same questions before allowing the deposit??

General_Grant

wiseonesomeofthetime said:

Do the automated cash deposit machines in branches ask the same questions before allowing the deposit??

The only cash deposit machines I use are for coins in NatWest.  You can deposit quite a lot in £2 coins.

The machine doesn't involve itself in asking but, given that it issues a paper slip which has to be taken to a teller in order for the cash to be deposited into an account, I guess they could ask.

Brie

I expect that the individual at the bank now has a pop up on their screen when there's a suitably significant cash deposit.  They have to ask and then click on the question to move on to the next bit of the transaction.  They will also have a way of logging what you respond - either from a drop down list or comments box.  If then the system flagged repeated deposits they could check against your responses.  So someone who deposits £100 - 500 every Monday might be working a car boot each weekend and that would be noted.