Beware Chase bank-they have just frozen my account and cant tell me why!!!

musicman100

Been using chase since last April working fine. On Thursday I tried to log into the app and it would let me instead said phone this number. So I did.

I was told my account was frozen but could not give me a reason and could not speak to any one about it.  Luckily I dont use Chase for my main bank account but i do use it for most purchases. luckily i checked before i used the card to buy something.

Now there are three main reasons for frozen account

1 - Security breach -not this because that would be sorted by the fraud department and sorted within a day.

2 - debts owed following court action- i don't have any debts

3- Suspicious  Activity - No i do not launder money and have not made any large deposits or large withdrawals last one was about £800 but done quite a few of those.

Phone up again today still cant tell me anything or tell me when it will be sorted.

i have a few other bank accounts and never had a problem like this . maybe a few hours at the most and sorted it out with a phone call to the fraud departments.

This is not good enough Chase bank this has put me off using chase bank now.

 

MattMattMattUK

musicman100 said:

Been using chase since last April working fine. On Thursday I tried to log into the app and it would let me instead said phone this number. So I did.

I was told my account was frozen but could not give me a reason and could not speak to any one about it.  Luckily I dont use Chase for my main bank account but i do use it for most purchases. luckily i checked before i used the card to buy something.

Now there are three main reasons for frozen account

1 - Security breach -not this because that would be sorted by the fraud department and sorted within a day.

2 - debts owed following court action- i don't have any debts

3- Suspicious  Activity - No i do not launder money and have not made any large deposits or large withdrawals last one was about £800 but done quite a few of those.

Phone up again today still cant tell me anything or tell me when it will be sorted.

i have a few other bank accounts and never had a problem like this . maybe a few hours at the most and sorted it out with a phone call to the fraud departments.

This is not good enough Chase bank this has put me off using chase bank now.

Some activity will have triggered an AML flag, once they are triggered they are legally required to investigate and they are not allowed to tell you what us going on as otherwise if your activity was illegal they would be giving you a heads up. At the conclusion of the investigation they would either unlock your account or refer you to the police.

musicman100

Surely by blocking the account they are giving you a heads up!!!! That argument does not make sense if i was doing anything illegal I would know they were looking into it because the account would be blocked!!

Brie

It's not necessarily that you are doing something illegal.  It may be someone else has accessed your account and is doing something.  Or something that you did, which was perfectly legitimate, looks a bit like something that is illegal to them.

One of the issues may be that if you were doing something legit - like paying a builder for some reno work - but the builder's name had been associated with fraud elsewhere then they need to freeze the account to ensure you are not getting scammed.  And they wouldn't want you to tell the builder there's an issue with the payment you had tried to make as that would help him run away with whatever ££ he's already got and close his associated accounts.    

400ixl

If it has triggered an investigation for suspicious activity, they are not allowed to tell you what that activity was. If they did that then criminals (no accusations) would soon work out how to avoid the triggers.

It will take as long as it takes to do the investigation unfortunately. There may be some time limits, but it is weeks not days.

Blocking the account isn't giving you a heads up, that would be if they said we are going to block it in 5 days. They gave no heads up, they have just blocked access and access to the suspicious funds.

This is no different for Chase than any other bank, so would be the same for any bank and the action they would have to take. So you are essentially saying to avoid all banks registered to function in the UK.

It is a good reminder to have more than one current account active at any one time just in case.

born_again

Have a look through this section & you will see just about ALL banks do this. With exactly the same process. It will take as long as it takes. When they are ready they will contact you.

Could be good news you account is unblocked. Or bad news a 60 day closure letter or even worse a immediate closure.

So you might as well remove the "Beware" from the title, as it is normal action & a legal requirement by FCA if something does not look right.

SiliconChip

born_again said:

Have a look through this section & you will see just about ALL banks do this.

Is there any bank (operating in the UK at least) that doesn't do it? Surely any that doesn't must be failing to do AML checks and would therefore lose their banking licence.

General_Grant

I wonder if there are any statistics available for each bank listing how many accounts they have locked because of AML concerns and how many of those were released with no further action as decision was ML was not taking place.

Futuristic

General_Grant said:

I wonder if there are any statistics available for each bank listing how many accounts they have locked because of AML concerns and how many of those were released with no further action as decision was ML was not taking place.

Sounds like data that would only be useful to scammers/fraudsters  

55ryan

musicman100 said:

Been using chase since last April working fine. On Thursday I tried to log into the app and it would let me instead said phone this number. So I did.

I was told my account was frozen but could not give me a reason and could not speak to any one about it.  Luckily I dont use Chase for my main bank account but i do use it for most purchases. luckily i checked before i used the card to buy something.

Now there are three main reasons for frozen account

1 - Security breach -not this because that would be sorted by the fraud department and sorted within a day.

2 - debts owed following court action- i don't have any debts

3- Suspicious  Activity - No i do not launder money and have not made any large deposits or large withdrawals last one was about £800 but done quite a few of those.

Phone up again today still cant tell me anything or tell me when it will be sorted.

i have a few other bank accounts and never had a problem like this . maybe a few hours at the most and sorted it out with a phone call to the fraud departments.

This is not good enough Chase bank this has put me off using chase bank now.

 

1. Not true in most cases. 
3. There could be the answer. If it is a personal account that would certainly raise flags coloured red. Are we talking lot of transfers generally or lots of transfers all for £800 each.  
3b. So are there other accounts with larger amounts being transferred and withdrawn. Most people don't ever need to contact a banks fraud department ever.

I've worked in the financial sector and we all had AML on the brain. You have to ride it out. At best you may be given a tiniest indication but mostly will be told absolutely nothing as to the actual reason or reasons.  

Unfortunately we live in a world of scammers. A world where banks can and have been fined large amounts for AML failures. It isn't the scammers running scared it is the banks, hence the ever increasing numbers of accounts investigated for transactions in and out including their point of origin and destination.

I hope you get it sorted.    

MrsStepford

It's an American bank so may have extra protocols. My husband 's card was cloned and his card was blocked. His card has been blocked in the past when zero funds as salary was late and then bank took 24 hrs to unblock once salary arrived. So it's not necessarily something you've done. My bank suggested that I use PayPal so merchant doesn't get my card details.