wdwedwed

k_man

[Deleted User] said:

lindabea said:

[Deleted User] said:

Band7 said:

[Deleted User] said:

It was a much bigger payment than previously.  I called them straight away and explained than I had been making transfer to my zopa account which I have transferred to before multiple times.  They said they added this information to the the case for the back office team to review. 

Have you raised your complaint yet?

Yes,  I'm just off the phone.  They took the details and said they are passing to the complaints team. Complaints will contact me in a few days she said.

Don't hold your breath!!  I also had similar problems as you when I was banking with Santander, although they never froze my account.  They frequently withheld payments to my savings accounts for no apparent reason, and than took a long time to release the funds.  I also got the conflicting reasons/misleading information from members of staff.  In my experience, Santander is the worst bank I ever had to deal with and I would not recommend them to anyone.     

I will be closing my account. I don't want the threat of blocking access to your account for days for every transfer you make.

As frustrating as this has been, it could have happened with any bank. Currently Santander appear to be over zealous (although I remember a comment in another thread that they were reprimanded for being too lax, so this is likely the result of that).

So even if you move banks that won't guarantee it doesn't happen again.

Also if this is a long standing account, keeping it open (even if not used as your main account) help your credit status.

Opening another bank account is definately a good idea, just not necessarily switching.

Band7

Glad you got access again. Wait with closing/switching the account until they have processed your claim - as has been said, they might want to pay you compensation for the hold-up and the empty promises.

I'd also echo @k_man's suggestions.

If you want to bad a switch bonus, you could open a Santander Everyday account and switch that one straight away. If you have already instructed FD to switch your Santander account, you can still stop that / ask them to replace the account to be switched.

phillw

sol4ever said:

I called support straight away and they told me the case is with the "back office team" and I will get a call within 48 hours.  Well I'm still locked out after 4 days.

Have you raised a complaint?

If it's just that they want to make sure that the account holder is the person making the transaction, they will usually just put a few obstacles in your way & making a complaint will usually fix it. It often takes a couple of phone calls, I usually find something about the calls to add to the complaint.

If you've really spooked them (for example receiving large amounts of cash from foreign countries and then instantly transferred it out) then it could be months.

k_man

[Deleted User] said:

k_man said:

[Deleted User] said:

lindabea said:

[Deleted User] said:

Band7 said:

[Deleted User] said:

It was a much bigger payment than previously.  I called them straight away and explained than I had been making transfer to my zopa account which I have transferred to before multiple times.  They said they added this information to the the case for the back office team to review. 

Have you raised your complaint yet?

Yes,  I'm just off the phone.  They took the details and said they are passing to the complaints team. Complaints will contact me in a few days she said.

Don't hold your breath!!  I also had similar problems as you when I was banking with Santander, although they never froze my account.  They frequently withheld payments to my savings accounts for no apparent reason, and than took a long time to release the funds.  I also got the conflicting reasons/misleading information from members of staff.  In my experience, Santander is the worst bank I ever had to deal with and I would not recommend them to anyone.     

I will be closing my account. I don't want the threat of blocking access to your account for days for every transfer you make.

As frustrating as this has been, it could have happened with any bank. Currently Santander appear to be over zealous (although I remember a comment in another thread that they were reprimanded for being too lax, so this is likely the result of that).

So even if you move banks that won't guarantee it doesn't happen again.

Also if this is a long standing account, keeping it open (even if not used as your main account) help your credit status.

Opening another bank account is definately a good idea, just not necessarily switching.

Do other banks block access to your account for days for a "suspect" transfer or just reject the payment?  Searching on this site does seem to show lots of Santander issues.

Blocking access, while keeping the account operating, seems to be unique to Santander (I assume to prevent other potentially fraudulent transactions being added via compromised app/online access but allowing normal payments/DDs etc to continue).

Other banks seem to either just hold up the payment, or freeze the account completely, depending on the level of suspicion, while they investigate.

OceanSound

I once made a  complaint to Santander and it simply got lost in the ether (or so it seemed). it was about exchange rate difference between published mastercard rate and the rate charged on my zero card. 

The next day after complaining recevied an SMS from Santander saying 'my request is registered with reference: xxxx' . Three days after received an SMS saying '.your request (ref xxxxxxxx) is complete.. In between I heard nothing. 

I complained and after investigating Santander said a manager reviewed the case and decided to refund but a colleague hadn't followed it up. They paid me £50.00 in compensation. Not 100% sure they refunded the difference (pretty sure they did. It was a small amount anyway.)

About account locking I stumbled across this: 

https://www.ft.com/content/8fba7cac-83b3-4df3-a1a7-5b6869516085

'“Inform your bank before any planned activities — including incoming large deposits — that are out of the norm,” advises Resolver’s Alex Neill. “State explicitly where the money is coming from and why.”

This way, she says, your bank could put a note on your customer file “or request certain flags to be bypassed if it would result in your account being frozen".'

I wonder if we could do this for large payments too - in addition to large incoming deposits. So, in this case, OP informs Santander he is about to do a large transfer out. 

Maybe that's gonno clog up the support phone lines even more, due to anyone with a large payment calling Support? Anyway, just a thought.

Futuristic

Seems to be common problem with Santander specifically where blocked transfers/account locks are common and take days/weeks to resolve. I've also had compensation after I was blocked from transfers for a whole week and had to complain! 

Band7

[Deleted User] said:

OceanSound said:

[Deleted User] said:

Yes, the source bank can decline a CASS for a number of reasons, including if your account is frozen. I’m afraid this might be a case of having to sit it out – then you could try complaining and also look for alternative banking arrangements. 

However, if account is frozen the bank must inform account holder. Seems OP didn't have any such notification, so it's not a MLA (money laundering) related block.

I have an update and it escalated quickly.

I did raise a complaint at the beginning but heard nothing back.  About 2 weeks ago I got a missed call from Santander with a voice mail to call them back.  I mentioned at the beginning of this thread that I also have my business account with Santander.  I also had a savings account which was now empty but I had used it previously when I had rented my house out.

The call was to say that I had to provide source of funds including 3 months wage slips,  bank statements from all my external savings accounts, rental agreements from the previous tenant, proof of property ownership, etc etc.  I had 2 weeks to upload the evidence or they would freeze my business account.  I asked them what my personal finance has got to do with a business account.  All I got was "know your customer".  I immediately opened another business bank account and closed all my santander accounts.  Still shocked by my treatment.

Now might be a good time to collate the kind of documents Santander asked you for, as your new bank(s) might well ask you for the same information before long.

OceanSound

Band7 said:

[Deleted User] said:

OceanSound said:

[Deleted User] said:

Yes, the source bank can decline a CASS for a number of reasons, including if your account is frozen. I’m afraid this might be a case of having to sit it out – then you could try complaining and also look for alternative banking arrangements. 

However, if account is frozen the bank must inform account holder. Seems OP didn't have any such notification, so it's not a MLA (money laundering) related block.

I have an update and it escalated quickly.

I did raise a complaint at the beginning but heard nothing back.  About 2 weeks ago I got a missed call from Santander with a voice mail to call them back.  I mentioned at the beginning of this thread that I also have my business account with Santander.  I also had a savings account which was now empty but I had used it previously when I had rented my house out.

The call was to say that I had to provide source of funds including 3 months wage slips,  bank statements from all my external savings accounts, rental agreements from the previous tenant, proof of property ownership, etc etc.  I had 2 weeks to upload the evidence or they would freeze my business account.  I asked them what my personal finance has got to do with a business account.  All I got was "know your customer".  I immediately opened another business bank account and closed all my santander accounts.  Still shocked by my treatment.

Now might be a good time to collate the kind of documents Santander asked you for, as your new bank(s) might well ask you for the same information before long.

different banks/Fintech operate diffently. Unless they are sister institutions.

Generally, fintech's tend to be the ones overzealous. Santander seems a anomoly as it's a well established bank.

Edit: let's hope that all banks and fintech's don't adopt the same system that revolut had when they first started out (certainly hope they don't use the same system, or use it but at least made some improvements). 

AFAR it was letting through payments more than it should've (without checks)!and then when they did catch on, changed to the other extreme and started blocking pretty much each and every payment.

eskbanker

OceanSound said:
Generally, fintech's tend to be the ones overzealous. Santander seems a anomoly as it's a well established bank.

In the absence of any meaningful authoritative statistics, I'd take the opposite view, based on anecdotal 'evidence' on here, where the established players seem more likely to impose punitive KYC checks than fintechs, although of course they collectively still hold the bulk of the market share, so you could be right when such tales are weighted by the number of accounts....

OceanSound

eskbanker said:

OceanSound said:
Generally, fintech's tend to be the ones overzealous. Santander seems a anomoly as it's a well established bank.

In the absence of any meaningful authoritative statistics, I'd take the opposite view, based on anecdotal 'evidence' on here, where the established players seem more likely to impose punitive KYC checks than fintechs, although of course they collectively still hold the bulk of the market share, so you could be right when such tales are weighted by the number of accounts....

I did base my opinion on an article published in a 'authoritative' source. okay, it's not as 'authoritative' as the the Office of National Statistics. But I doubt they publish such statistics. 

Still, more authoritative than say the Daily Mail, Daily Mirror, Daily Express, and some hotch potch publications. 

Here is the link anyway: 

https://www.ft.com/content/8fba7cac-83b3-4df3-a1a7-5b6869516085

Challenging chills

“Freezing bank accounts and denying consumers access to their money is one of the most complained-about actions taken by challenger banks and money apps,” admits one senior executive of a UK digital payments app, who spoke to FT Money on condition of anonymity.  One reason could be that app-based fintech companies are much more adept at using technology to flag potential issues.  “Spotting potential fraud is usually algorithmic, running through transaction analysis to spot unusual behaviour,” he says.  If a large sum has been transferred, he says his staff may well ask to see a bank statement from the originator of the payment. Innocent customers may forewarn their banks of such transactions, but this will not necessarily stop the checks. 

.......