HSBC has frozen all my accounts - high earner left penniless

Band7

born_again said:

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.

May be, if the partner has their account at the same bank. But even if people share an address and the same surname, there is no guarantee that they are partners or that they share a household. I also fail to see how blocking the account of the high earner assists the DWP in investigating suspected benefit fraud.

B0bbyEwing

ent_moot said:

• 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.

I was just skim reading this thread out of nosey-ness to be honest as it seemed a little unusual.

Anyway I got to the above section of that post. It reminded me of a recent event...

I thought the Lifetime ISA was a very common scheme so should've been well-understood by solicitors/mortgage advisors ... so I'm totally baffled why those my sister paid up as part of her house purchase were so confused by it all.

Difference between should be & will be.

Not that I believe it makes any difference whatsoever to what's going on here because I don't think it does.

If I was a betting man, and I'm not, then  I'd put money on it being something to do with the cat purchase. Maybe the seller has flags with their accounts. 

I read another post where the sellers seemed nice, like a normal family. People can seem like a lot of things. I tend not to be too trusting of other people myself. If I want your money then I'm going to be the nicest guy you've ever met, you can be assured of that.

grumbler

ent_moot said:

Any other theories? 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranoia

born_again

ent_moot said:

Any other theories? 

Nope....

All you can do now is wait & see what HSBC come back with. Main thing is to get DD's set up & running else where. Then once sorted sounds like a switch for a bribe is in order.

BTW, benefits one was not aimed at you.👍👍 

ent_moot

>>since you say you have had accounts frozen in the past. 

I've never had my account(s) frozen, but I've had cards blocked, and have been contacted in the past about specific transactions that look dubious. I think this is normal, and was, at the time, reassuring, if anything.  The current situation is entirely different.  

gt94sss2

It could simply be that the payments to the family selling kittens triggered concerns by their bank and has led to your HSBC account being suspended.

Especially, if they were selling other kittens to other families as well.

Regardless, HSBC are not allowed to tell you why it happened or how long it will take to resolve.

If that was the cause, than any other bank would do the same as HSBC.

ent_moot

gt94sss2 said:

Regardless, HSBC are not allowed to tell you why it happened or how long it will take to resolve.

Does anyone know what the legislation actually says? Either we must have some incredibly poorly thought-out legislation, or the banks have implemented it poorly.

miller

Reading around the forums, it seems depositing large sums of cash can have a negative effect from an AML perspective; as it should (Fowler Oldfield comes to mind). Did the OP make the deposit into a business or personal account belonging to the kitten sellers? If they had recently sold most of the litter and deposited any cash (~£1400 per kitten) their account may have been close to investigation itself, especially if it was a personal account. As mentioned in this thread, making a transfer to a marked account then contaminates yourself from that perspective (presumably the banks will work back incoming transfers from the point of flagging too on the destination account).

I'm not convinced for the case for purchasing second hand vehicles in cash. Certainly from a seller's perspective if it was a valuable vehicle you're then potentially at risk from robbery, then from AML flagging yourself when you deposit the money.

born_again

ent_moot said:

gt94sss2 said:

Regardless, HSBC are not allowed to tell you why it happened or how long it will take to resolve.

Does anyone know what the legislation actually says? Either we must have some incredibly poorly thought-out legislation, or the banks have implemented it poorly.

Tipping off, is the phrase.

You are not allowed to even hint at any issues. Any employee caught can face the sack, a large fine & up to 5 years at HM pleasure.

dealyboy

Hello again @ent_moot ...

You asked for theories. Well it is clearly not a simple interception of a first time transfer of a 'large' sum of money (happened to me a couple of days ago whereby I received a text to give First Direct a call and it was then released).

Two thoughts come to mind (well three actually, I'm a cat lover, what breed are your kittens?) ... firstly banks are upping their implementation of fraud prevention measures at the moment for several reasons, e.g. Santander have implemented a few more steps in their already quite lengthy new payments setup, and ... secondly cash transactions ...

Here is a link to a thread from about 3 weeks ago where the poor chap had his account frozen, apparently simply because of a suspicious cashier ...

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6426248/kafkaesque-banking