Revolut account frozen

Godsmuse

I've had an account with Revolut for 4 years without issue, however last week my personal account was frozen and two weeks in there's no change. Are there any alternative legal avenues aside from a direct complaint and the ombudsman?
According to Revolut I've committed no wrong doing and the "review" is simply to ensure my account is "safe". This is obviously BS as they first froze my personal account and then my business accounts a week later with no warning or justification.

The sums involved are quite significant

(Average person's annual salary)

Can anyone help?

Daliah

As with blocked accounts at any company, all you can do is wait until the investigations are completed. There are no set timescales for this, and they are not allowed to tell you why you are being investigated.

Once you have access to your money again, you might wish to review how much you wish to keep on deposit with Revolut. As they still do not have a UK banking licence, you get no FSCS protection from them. But even if you did, having all your eggs in the same basket is not really a good idea. It’s best to spread your money over several (proper) banks, and may be don’t have your personal and your business account in the same place. 

sheramber

There are no alternatives  to waiting it out.

The bank are abiding by the rules. 

The advice to use more than one bank is regularly repeated on here.  

Bridlington1

The issue is that it's difficult for banks and financial service providers to distinguish between suspicious activity and unusual activity. In an increasingly digitalised age and with fraudsters becoming more and more sophisticated in their methods, it is becoming even harder to make that distinction.

As for timescale it is really pot luck. I've had two accounts frozen this year, one was frozen for 23 days, the other for 4 days. There are reports of it taking 3 months+ to unfreeze some accounts.

Bank accounts being frozen seems to be becoming an increasingly common occurrence I'm afraid so it's probably to be expected that you will, at some point get you account frozen. I would agree with @Daliah in the sense that going forward you shouldn't keep all your eggs in one basket so to speak. There's a few current accounts that pay in credit interest, e.g. Virgin (£1k at 2%), Nationwide (£1.5k at 5% for a year) so I would get at least one of these accounts as soon as possible, or a credit card. Then get any wages etc paid into the new account and leave revolut to get on with it.

born_again

(Removed by Forum Team)

There are none. Bank will simply cite that they have the right as FCA & Government regulations. In fact if they ignore anything that does not look right. The fines are massive.

So a complaint to Revoult will not get it resolved any faster. In fact may delay, as you then have 2 departments involved. FOS will simply say they are doing what is expected of them.
Court will take a lot longer & cost a lot more than a average annual salary.

Clearly something has brought your accounts to their attention. Could be as simple as someone that has paid you has links to someone/where that are sanctioned.

End of the day. Now would be a good time to get a new account set up. Just in case they decide they no longer want you as a customer.

Bridlington1

born_again said:

Godsmuse said:

Daliah said:

As with blocked accounts at any company, all you can do is wait until the investigations are completed. There are no set timescales for this, and they are not allowed to tell you why you are being investigated.

Once you have access to you money again, you might wish to review how much you wish to keep on deposit with Revolut. As they still do not have a UK banking licence, you get no FSCS protection from them. But even if you did, having all your eggs in the same basket is not really a good idea. It’s best to spread your money over several (proper) banks, and may be don’t have you personal and you business account in the same place. 

Wow, first reply is a dig veiled in fake civility. Does anyone have any actual advice on potential alternative legal avenues for pursuing this bank?

Clearly something has brought your accounts to their attention. Could be as simple as someone that has paid you has links to someone/where that are sanctioned.

It doesn't even have to be that. It could be that you have just made more transactions than usual. One of my accounts was frozen because I opened a savings account, then transferred some of my savings into it.

grumbler

sheramber said:

There are no alternatives  to waiting it out.

The bank are abiding by the rules.

Ha-ha.

Is there any rule obliging them to drag their feet for ages as they typically do? What is there to 'investigate' for weeks if not months?

400ixl

No alternative other than waiting. Then take your money and run as far away as quickly as you can from this company.

Godsmuse

400ixl said:

No alternative other than waiting. Then take your money and run as far away as quickly as you can from this company.

Completely agree!

k_man

As frustrating as this is, I don't think it is Revolut specific.
While there may be other reasons for not using them as a main account with high balances (lack of FSCS protection an obvious one), but this could have happened at any bank.

There are similar threads for most other banks, so just  moving to another bank does really help.
However adding additional bank accounts does reduce the impact of a future occurrence.

sheramber

grumbler said:

sheramber said:

There are no alternatives  to waiting it out.

The bank are abiding by the rules.

Ha-ha.

Is there any rule obliging them to drag their feet for ages as they typically do? What is there to 'investigate' for weeks if not months?

How do you know they are dragging their feet.

Enquiries take as along as they take  to get answers

There will me more accounts than yours to investigate.