HSBC has frozen all my accounts - high earner left penniless

GadgetGuru

Its good that the bank freezes an account when it senses fraud, but they should have some kind of system in place whereby someone's life isn't placed on hold while they investigate - even if it means physically going into a branch with your passport, or other such ID, so that certain direct debits, payments, or incoming's could be authorised......

This is an awful situation to be in. Almost like CBDC.......

Robin9

My wife was very pleased to have the intervention of Barclay's fraud checks -  they picked up lots of minor debits, rang her  and refunded the payments.  

The challenge was answering their recent payment questions !

born_again

ent_moot said:

I agree.

However, in my case, I had visited the family a week earlier, chatted and seen the kittens and children. It was clearly a very ordinary and pleasant family. 

Therefore, I had no problem leaving a £400 deposit, and the owner had no problem with me transferring the remaining £1000, even if it didn't arrive the day of collection

I suspect it wasn't one thing, in my case. HSBC has never been great at tech, and probably have a score-based algorithm that lacks any real smarts.  So I probably scored "points" for a number of things:


- having more than 30k in a current account
- having more than 50k across 2 accounts
- withdrawing a largish sum of cash (£400)
- transferring a largish sum of money (£1000) 
- not having mortgage or rent payments (because I've paid off my mortgage) - no doubt HSBC have not integrated their fraud system with their mortgage system, and don't factor in the fact that I had a mortgage with them that I fully paid off
- the fact that I don't ordinarily buy anything from anywhere other than Amazon or Ocado, and normally never more than £300
- not being premier 
- maybe the fact that I have 5 standing orders to my wife's monzo (one for each day of the week)

I probably hit some point threshold, and got added to the queue.

Got nothing to do with that at all.

It will be something related to payment/s. Does not have to be system related flag. It can just as easily be flagged up by a staff member.

Given you job. Do you receive payments from oversea's? Or other payments via other methods other than a wage?

One of the most common reports. 
High earner & partner claiming benefits.

Band7

born_again said:

One of the most common reports. 
High earner & partner claiming benefits.

Can you elaborate on this, please? How does a bank know who the partner is, what the relationship between the partners is like, and that the partner gets benefits [that, in the bank's view, they shouldn't receive, I suppose??]?  

born_again

Band7 said:

born_again said:

One of the most common reports. 
High earner & partner claiming benefits.

Can you elaborate on this, please? How does a bank know who the partner is, what the relationship between the partners is like, and that the partner gets benefits [that, in the bank's view, they shouldn't receive, I suppose??]?  

Very easy to tell who partner is.
Banks have a duty to tell HMRC etc of fraud & tax issues.

km1500

keep the new Lloyds bank account 'clean' ie just your household DDs out, with one payment in to cover them. Don't use it for anything else

If the balance gets a bit high use your Lloyds debit card to buy petrol.or something. Don't transfer anything out.

Alex9384

For those who say it's a good thing because people get scammed...
Normally it's only that one transaction that is put on hold and they ask you to call them. In some cases, like TSB, they lock you out of your internet banking, but your direct debits still go out. I was even able to carry on with card purchases while my account was locked.

If the account is frozen and not even regular DDs go out, that doesn't seem to me like protection from scammers.

Edit: I got locked out of my new TSB account at least 4 times when making payments to my own accounts. A payment of 1k went through. Another payment of 25 quid or so (to a different account), locked me out of my online banking. Also Lloyds and Coop stopped payments I think over 1k. What's different from the OP situation is that I was able to immediately call all those banks and get it resolved on the same day.

ent_moot

born_again said:

Got nothing to do with that at all.

It will be something related to payment/s. Does not have to be system related flag. It can just as easily be flagged up by a staff member.

Given you job. Do you receive payments from oversea's? Or other payments via other methods other than a wage?

One of the most common reports. 
High earner & partner claiming benefits.

No, all payments are bog-standard PAYE wages, apart from:

• Sharesave scheme -  a government endorsed scheme, whereby employees pay some of their salary (after tax) into the scheme on a monthly basis. At the end, they get back either the money they put in, or the shares, if they have increased. As the shareprice had gone down, I received back the 15k I put in (and which I had already paid tax on). I believe this is a very common scheme, so should be well-understood by the banks.
  
• Annual bonus - again, a pretty common practice. Again, my employer manages the taxes, so I receive the post-tax amount
  
  

No, my wife receives ZERO benefits, obviously.  We were even careful to explicitly decline child benefits so that she could receive NI years after our child's birth. 

enthusiasticsaver

Have you still had zero response from HSBC?  I have never had an account with them but I would have to say that is extraordinary especially since you say you have had accounts frozen in the past.  We have banked with Barclays, Santander, First Direct, Lloyds and Starling and never had accounts frozen although some unusual transactions have been flagged for fraud once and they contacted us.  However we have a relationship for either savings or current account or credit card with more than one of them so should one do something similar we would always have access to money.  None of the things you mention seem to be obviously a marker for fraud.  £400 cash is nothing and lots of us have income of over £50k.  I would be fuming if my direct debits were returned and account frozen with absolutely no contact from the bank as to why.  Close the account and complain direct to HSBC. Make sure they pick up any charges you incur re the returned payments. 

ent_moot

Any other theories?