How to avoid bank accounts being frozen and minimise problems if they were.

lr1277

@Momanns

Thank you for your informative reply.

I think I was conflating my worries by the people who act as money mules and then can't open any account. But I suppose in those cases there is hard evidence to tag an account and its account holder as fraudulent or acting fraudulently.

gt94sss2

Perhaps also:

Don't write odd/funny/rude payment reference numbers or send lots of 1p payments.

Don't pay in large sums in cash regularly

Don't run a business from a personal bank account

blue.peter

I started a thread a while ago about one specific possible risk. You might (or might not) think it relevant.

Bridlington1

I think a lot of it depends on how you use individual accounts. Say you had a fixed rate bond that had £30k in it which will mature tomorrow and the money is to be paid into your current account and that you have 2 accounts with different banking institutions it could be paid into:

• Account A is an account you regularly bounce five figure sums through on their way to other savings accounts.
• Account B is an account you only use occasionally and which the largest deposit you have ever made into it is £50.

You are far more likely to end up with a frozen account if the money is paid into account B than if it was to be paid into account A as it would be viewed as normal account activity in account A but for account B this would be very unusual activity.

I have bounced £250k (over 15 times my annual income) through my Lloyds account over the course of 2022 and the account has yet to be frozen and I suspect that will be down to the fact that I have moved money through it pretty much since the day it was opened.

If I tried using my Co-operative bank account (which has never had more than £50 deposited into it over the course of a single month since it was opened) like I use my Lloyds account it would probably be frozen within a few days.

Nebulous2

Bridlington1 said:

I think a lot of it depends on how you use individual accounts. Say you had a fixed rate bond that had £30k in it which will mature tomorrow and the money is to be paid into your current account and that you have 2 accounts with different banking institutions it could be paid into:

• Account A is an account you regularly bounce five figure sums through on their way to other savings accounts.
• Account B is an account you only use occasionally and which the largest deposit you have ever made into it is £50.

You are far more likely to end up with a frozen account if the money is paid into account B than if it was to be paid into account A as it would be viewed as normal account activity in account A but for account B this would be very unusual activity.

I have bounced £250k (over 15 times my annual income) through my Lloyds account over the course of 2022 and the account has yet to be frozen and I suspect that will be down to the fact that I have moved money through it pretty much since the day it was opened.

If I tried using my Co-operative bank account (which has never had more than £50 deposited into it over the course of a single month since it was opened) like I use my Lloyds account it would probably be frozen within a few days.

There is some speculation on this thread, but I find this very plausible.

I'm not at the same level of transfer as you, but use my Santander as a hub account for my monthly money transfers to other accounts, and have had no problems despite Santander tightening their processes and generating a lot of complaints recently. They even offered me their select account at one point. They rarely even send me an OTP. 

Some other accounts only get enough to fund their regular saver and I assume would find large transfers more worthy of investigation.

James

Fraud, attempted fraud, impersonation are but a few reasons an account or accounts or your credit file maybe frozen.

I've posted many times on this but North Yorkshire Police are supporting a simple system I've been using for years. Another county's Police Force is about to do the same.

Would any of any you accept a cheque without a signature?  NO.  Well I've instructed banks/creditors not to accept a NEW application without a print. 

A Solution to Identity Fraud.    This is how to prevent your credit files from being frozen.

A few years ago, Rip Off Britain's Gloria Hunniford had her Santander account emptied by someone pretending to be her and had two others pretending to be relatives added to her account as additional account holders. 

This is one type of account takeover.  I'm not letting this happen to me.   I've lodged the same message with my banks, Dont accept a signature without a print. Simple but so effective.



Hope this helps someone

RG2015

James said:

Fraud, attempted fraud, impersonation are but a few reasons an account or accounts or your credit file maybe frozen.

I've posted many times on this but North Yorkshire Police are supporting a simple system I've been using for years. Another county's Police Force is about to do the same.

Would any of any you accept a cheque without a signature?  NO.  Well I've instructed banks/creditors not to accept a NEW application without a print. 

A Solution to Identity Fraud.    This is how to prevent your credit files from being frozen.

A few years ago, Rip Off Britain's Gloria Hunniford had her Santander account emptied by someone pretending to be her and had two others pretending to be relatives added to her account as additional account holders. 

This is one type of account takeover.  I'm not letting this happen to me.   I've lodged the same message with my banks, Dont accept a signature without a print. Simple but so effective.



Hope this helps someone

This looks interesting, but what do you mean by a new application and by a print?

Would you be able to provide details or an example of what you are doing and how you would operate your process. 

flaneurs_lobster

James said:

A Solution to Identity Fraud.    This is how to prevent your credit files from being frozen.

  Ironically, that link trips Malwarebytes Browser Guard

Website blocked due to riskware

Website blocked: theantisocialengineer.com

Malwarebytes Browser Guard blocked this website because it may contain malware activity.

We strongly recommend you do not continue.

phillw

dealyboy said:

When performing a transfer or payment do a 'tester' of £1 first, oils the wheels.

I sometimes forget this and wonder where my money's gone (Security).

This is less important after COP, in fact it's more likely to flag your account as sending a small transaction and then a large transaction is what fraudsters were doing. The small transaction will go through immediately, then the large transaction will not and customer services will tell you that faster payments have until the following evening to go through

phillw

Nebulous2 said:
I'm not at the same level of transfer as you, but use my Santander as a hub account for my monthly money transfers to other accounts, and have had no problems despite Santander tightening their processes and generating a lot of complaints recently. They even offered me their select account at one point. They rarely even send me an OTP. 

I still have Santander eSaver as my hub, they have locked me out of my account completely in the past and now I can only send a couple of transactions a month before OTP kicks in for the rest of the month.

I didn't receive a single OTP until I started putting about £4k a month through it, now they even do it for £2. At first I didn't know what all the fuss was about.