Nat West 10 February at 3:26PM edited 13 February at 5:25PM in Budgeting & bank accounts 64 replies 3K views

missile

I am frustrated with Nat West>

On 08th February, I sold an item on market place for £5. Buyer asked me to post. I agreed for additional £3 p+p. He transferred £8 to my account.
He had misread the advert and I refunded his £8.
I have confirmation of payments in and out of my account. Which I sent to him.
He then claimed he did not receive refund and sent me abusive / threatening messages.

Today I receive notification from Nat West that my account has been blocked.
They referenced his £8 payment and asked for a response to a long list of questions within 3 days.
I telephoned NW, but they refused to discuss.

I have answered all their questions and attached details of the transactions.
I received this automated response> 

If you’re providing details relating to transaction(s) that we’ve advised have been reported , we’ll aim to provide an update on the outcome of our review  within approximately 5 working days, in accordance with our original email. We regret that no further information can be provided until the review is complete
** Please note that you will still be able to withdraw wages or benefits via branch with valid ID during this time. **

I have been a client for 50 years with several thousand pounds in my account. I find it unacceptable that they would block my account for a report from a third party for a trifling £8. It is really inconvenient to travel quite a distance to visit a branch to withdraw cash. I am unable to use my Debit Card and it is unclear whether they will continue to pay DD and SO?

PRAISETHESUN

This is a fairly classic scam - buyer sends payment, then ask for you to send a refund. Separately, the buyer also claws back the original payment from their bank - leaving you out of pocket twice. Why they'd bother doing this for £8 is beyond me, but some people can't be reasoned with.

All you can really do is provide NatWest with the info they need to investigate and wait. They won't be allowed to discuss the process due to AML rules. I'd also log a formal complaint and explain that this will cause you hardship if it is not resolved in a timely manner.

eskbanker

missile said:

I sold an item on market place for £5

Too late for this one but in future you might consider opening another account with a different bank to use when selling stuff to strangers, in order to mitigate the risk of this sort of thing impacting your day to day finances....

flaneurs_lobster

Does the use of PayPal stop this kind of thing happening, or at least keep it away from your main bank account. 

WillPS

flaneurs_lobster said:

Does the use of PayPal stop this kind of thing happening, or at least keep it away from your main bank account. 

Yes, because the buyer's complaint is with PayPal rather than their bank.

missile

I think this buyer is mentally deranged.

I have several thousand pounds in my NW account which I cannot access. I shall register a formal complaint.

Fortunately I have another current account which I can use.

grumbler

PRAISETHESUN said:

 They won't be allowed to discuss the process due to AML rules.

I don't see what this can have to do with AML.  Yes, it can be fraud, but not all fraud is Money Laundering.

missile

grumbler said:

PRAISETHESUN said:

 They won't be allowed to discuss the process due to AML rules.

I don't see what this can have to do with AML.  Yes, it can be fraud, but not all fraud is Money Laundering.

Any excuse does. Blame it on Health & Safety :-)

If and when I do get back into my NW account, I am tempted to report the refund I made to his account as "fraud". Don't get mad get even :-)

RG2015

I understand that marketplace is a platform facilitated by Facebook/Meta and presumably their Ts&Cs indemnify them against any financial claims. (ie they accept no responsibility for any disputes)

Therefore this scenario has nothing to do with Meta and could have happened with any financial transaction dispute.

Surely NatWest must have substantially more evidence than one party's word that any wrongdoing has occurred. Otherwise this action by NatWest could happen to anyone without any cause. Or alternatively, NatWest have grossly overreacted and could be liable for a substantial compensation claim.

I am not doubting the original post in any way but it does appear as though I am missing something.

eskbanker

RG2015 said:

Surely NatWest must have substantially more evidence than one party's word that any wrongdoing has occurred. Otherwise this action by NatWest could happen to anyone without any cause. Or alternatively, NatWest have grossly overreacted and could be liable for a substantial compensation claim.

I am not doubting the original post in any way but it does appear as though I am missing something.

This scenario has come up on numerous previous threads on here, i.e. payer convinces their bank that they've been defrauded by the payee, and the payee's bank freezes the account while the matter is investigated.

It's obviously highly inconvenient when the payee is innocent, but when banks are on the hook to reimburse authorised push payments scams (thanks to pressure from consumer champions such as you-know-who), they're stuck between a rock and a hard place in terms of who to believe prior to the matter being investigated, and, as with some of the more legislative/regulatory controls, effectively have to side with the accuser initially, even though it's understandable that this seems grossly unfair to the likes of OP.

If you think about it from the perspective of the payer here, if you feel you can make a case (however creative) that you've been defrauded and report it to your bank, wouldn't you expect them to take action?  Clearly if the payment was made to some dodgy crypto or mini bond scam company it's only right that assets are temporarily frozen ahead of recovery action, but innocent payees end up suffering collateral damage.

I'm not defending the practice here by the way, and imagine that there could/should be better checks and balances (such as ring-fencing or even temporarily removing OP's £8 rather than the blunt instrument of freezing the entire account, for example), but the above is my understanding of what's currently happening and why....

RG2015

Thank you @eskbanker,

I haven't come across this scenario before, but neither have I heard of someone who didn't receive a genuine refund having any joy with the getting the bank involved.

Furthermore to get an account frozen within 2 days seems incredible.