LBG closing all my accounts on 18th May

Frequentlyhere

@Bridlington1

I haven't read this 17 pages in full (believe it or not), but just to relay my experience when this happened to me. 

In March 2020, Halifax sent a similar note to me, on the same day that they also sent me a letter to say they want to do whatever they can to help during the pandemic.

I'm not a profitable customer for them, do lots of switching/stoozing, but nothing illegal at all and had been a customer for 18 years. I was very concerned also because all of my share ISA's were with them.

Upon research, I found that they apparently 'don't like' P2P lending, of which i had been doing heavily and ironically by March 2020 was barely doing at all - not that it should be a problem, of course, as it's a perfectly legitimiate FCA regulated activity.

I did 2 things:

1) Write the classic "firmly worded" letter stating that I have nothing to hide and suggesting that it is perhaps this P2P lending that has caused them concern, and that I was happy to evidence any of my activity upon request.

2) Which I think really helped, I called my local branch ( think after being told to do so by the call centre, can't recall). I told them what had happened and that I was mystified. The lady was a bit perplexed at first but then dug out an appeal form of some sort. We completed it together, very little detail of any substance, basically saying "um, can you not do this?" and submitted it.

Sometime later, 10 days, 2 weeks I had the letter saying " Only kidding! you're all good".

It's very disconcerting indeed, I hope you manage to get it sorted.

At the time it happened to me we all had bigger things to worry about of course, but your post reminded me and has made me pretty angry in hindsight that LBG just arbitrarily decided to pull the plug on my financial world with clearly no good reason to do so (as the only thing of any substance i did to get it retracted was point out that "yes indeed I do P2P lending, and so what?"). 

It looks like they're reasoning is different with you, but still an appeal via branch might help if you've not tried it. 

Bridlington1

Frequentlyhere said:

@Bridlington1

I haven't read this 17 pages in full (believe it or not), but just to relay my experience when this happened to me. 

In March 2020, Halifax sent a similar note to me, on the same day that they also sent me a letter to say they want to do whatever they can to help during the pandemic.

I'm not a profitable customer for them, do lots of switching/stoozing, but nothing illegal at all and had been a customer for 18 years. I was very concerned also because all of my share ISA's were with them.

Upon research, I found that they apparently 'don't like' P2P lending, of which i had been doing heavily and ironically by March 2020 was barely doing at all - not that it should be a problem, of course, as it's a perfectly legitimiate FCA regulated activity.

I did 2 things:

1) Write the classic "firmly worded" letter stating that I have nothing to hide and suggesting that it is perhaps this P2P lending that has caused them concern, and that I was happy to evidence any of my activity upon request.

2) Which I think really helped, I called my local branch ( think after being told to do so by the call centre, can't recall). I told them what had happened and that I was mystified. The lady was a bit perplexed at first but then dug out an appeal form of some sort. We completed it together, very little detail of any substance, basically saying "um, can you not do this?" and submitted it.

Sometime later, 10 days, 2 weeks I had the letter saying " Only kidding! you're all good".

It's very disconcerting indeed, I hope you manage to get it sorted.

At the time it happened to me we all had bigger things to worry about of course, but your post reminded me and has made me pretty angry in hindsight that LBG just arbitrarily decided to pull the plug on my financial world with clearly no good reason to do so (as the only thing of any substance i did to get it retracted was point out that "yes indeed I do P2P lending, and so what?"). 

It looks like they're reasoning is different with you, but still an appeal via branch might help if you've not tried it. 

Thanks for your post.

I had never even heard of P2P lending before seeing your post. I've just googled it and I have never done anything like that.

I have already tried visiting a Lloyds branch and they said there was absolutely nothing they could do about it and have said they've never come across anyone who has got a decision like this reversed. I spoke to them on the phone yesterday and after contacting the accounts review team they said that their decision was final and they wouldn't be discussing this further.

At the moment I'm on damage limitation mode trying to chase up this Cifa search which I shall do in an hour in an attempt to prevent any of the other banks closing my accounts. Plus I've got a lot of nominated bank accounts I need to change now so that will keep me busy.

I'm glad you got LBG sorted in your case but at present it looks highly unlikely they will let me stay on as a customer.

Frequentlyhere

Best of luck with it, I feel for you.

I would say though that it might be worth pursuing with the (another?) branch as the one I contacted did seem a bit clueless at first and it could easily have gone the other way.

I mean, the appeal form does exist and there are people who have appealed (me), so unless they've recently changed their processes or if there's something weird re: lloyds vs Halifax then it seems to me that what they've told you isn't quite right. 

Section62

Frequentlyhere said:

Best of luck with it, I feel for you.

I would say though that it might be worth pursuing with the (another?) branch as the one I contacted did seem a bit clueless at first and it could easily have gone the other way.

I mean, the appeal form does exist and there are people who have appealed (me), so unless they've recently changed their processes or if there's something weird re: lloyds vs Halifax then it seems to me that what they've told you isn't quite right. 

I think there could be a difference in that 1) your case was during the pandemic, and 2) there was nothing you'd done which was objectively 'wrong'.

Arguably Bridlington1 has done a fair bit 'wrong' (in Lloyds eyes, no criticism intended) with the account opening and switching and the rotation of money around various low balance accounts.

It could be that Lloyd's staff can see this difference and don't want to waste Bridlington1's time making an appeal they know - for commercial reasons - will not go his way.

masonic

Frequentlyhere said:

Upon research, I found that they apparently 'don't like' P2P lending

I'd be surprised if that were actually the case, or the source of your problems. It is, after all, just the transfer of money to/from other FCA authorised institutions at the end of the day. A pattern of transactions, which could be similar across P2P lending, gambling, crypto investing and money laundering, might get a flag raised on their automated systems, but that's purely speculation. It seems upon review your activity was not considered to be a problem.

Bridlington1

I've just spoken to Al Rayan. After coming across someone who didn't seem to know what a Cifa is I rang a second time and spoke to someone else who confirmed that they did a search on 13/3/23 but that it was just a routine search and that it won't be visible to any other financial institutions so is nothing to worry about.

Band7

It is not  surprising that a bank employee doesn't know what CIFA is 


You want CIFAS - Credit Industry Fraud Avoidance System

flaneurs_lobster

Good name for a feline pet - Cifa Cat.

Zanderman

flaneurs_lobster said:

Good name for a feline pet - Cifa Cat.

I prefer Cifa Chocolate

pecunianonolet

Based on my rather long post a few pages back outlining OH and I had basically the same activity with Lloyds what concerns switches and account openings. I got the nasty letter from Halifax that they don't want me as customer, OH got the Halifax switch incentive this morning  OH switched a Lloyds account to Halifax.

I think the reason why Halifax doesn't want me must have other underlying reasons, and presume this has to do with the credit file. Let's see what digging in my reports with CIFAS uncovers.