LBG closing all my accounts on 18th May

WillPS

pecunianonolet said:

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. 

How many Current Accounts did your OH open at once?

trient

pecunianonolet said:

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. 

Or it's rather algorithms doing the work and flagging accounts pseudo-randomly.

Remember the Chase situation that went on and on - no obvious pattern why some payments would get blocked/referred, even for standing orders that already paid out to known accounts just fine in the past.

pecunianonolet

trient said:

pecunianonolet said:

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. 

Or it's rather algorithms doing the work and flagging accounts pseudo-randomly.

Remember the Chase situation that went on and on - no obvious pattern why some payments would get blocked/referred, even for standing orders that already paid out to known accounts just fine in the past.

I am not really aware of the Chase situation but sometimes things go a very peculiar way and algos might play a part in bringing some things to the surface for humans to look at and others get away with it. 

dealyboy

@trient, @pecunianonolet ...

I needed to speak to the fraud department of Halifax twice this morning; they are clearly extremely nervous of scams and transfers at the moment.

Each time for 10 minutes I was asked questions and to login/logout of desktop banking and mobile banking, whilst they checked things, because I had the temerity to attempt to transfer £1,500 from my new Rewards account to my Santander account, the account I had transferred £1,500 from just 5 minutes before. I had earlier transferred in and out £1.

At least on the second occasion the security chap was apologetic and clearly embarrassed.

Questions like 'why did I want to transfer money to my own account' and 'what is the make of my smartphone' and then a series of statements to which 'yes' was the only acceptable answer, the last of which was 'do you understand if we release the payment it will be at your own risk, Halifax will not be responsible'.

I must say I hadn't expected it, the security involved in logging on and setting up the payment together with its history under CoP surely should have been enough, but no it raised a 'red flag'.

Marchitiello

Bridlington1 said:

As a consolation prize I've just booked myself in for an initial telephone consultation with Schroders personal wealth management (part of LBG). Lloyds have been pestering me about personal wealth managers etc for ages despite my not meeting the eligibility criteria so I might as well see what the fuss is about.

Worth the initial free call for the experience but it is fee based product offer if you sign up to anything they offer, and would require some fairly sizeable financial commitment to make it worth IMHO (officially is open to anyone investing at least £100k but when I looked at it, it would be at least £570k to make it competitive).. I qualify for Lloyds “Relationship Manager” service for some years and was offered Schroders service from launch, but not sure of the value for small to medium investments really

gwapenut

dealyboy said:

@trient, @pecunianonolet ...

I needed to speak to the fraud department of Halifax twice this morning; they are clearly extremely nervous of scams and transfers at the moment.

Each time for 10 minutes I was asked questions and to login/logout of desktop banking and mobile banking, whilst they checked things, because I had the temerity to attempt to transfer £1,500 from my new Rewards account to my Santander account, the account I had transferred £1,500 from just 5 minutes before. I had earlier transferred in and out £1.

At least on the second occasion the security chap was apologetic and clearly embarrassed.

Questions like 'why did I want to transfer money to my own account' and 'what is the make of my smartphone' and then a series of statements to which 'yes' was the only acceptable answer, the last of which was 'do you understand if we release the payment it will be at your own risk, Halifax will not be responsible'.

I must say I hadn't expected it, the security involved in logging on and setting up the payment together with its history under CoP surely should have been enough, but no it raised a 'red flag'.

This week, I changed the date on a bunch of existing standing orders from the 1st of the month to the 7th. Twice, I triggered a fraud lockdown. This was with Lloyds.

I don't really get it, given that the amounts and the payees stayed the same. 

Band7

Bridlington1 said:

WillPS said:

Bridlington1 said:

I went into my local Lloyds branch today and their response was as expected. They said that I am bared from opening a LBG account for life and that it was a decision taken by head office and cannot be overturned. They also said they had no contact details for the account closure team and had a bit of a moan about how these letters always tell you to go into branch when they can do nothing about it.

Ah that is wrenching news. I wonder how 'for life' these things really are? Surely there's a right to be forgotten at some point if this is a 'no fault' closure?

I don't know but my only hope of opening a Lloyds account in the future seems to be if the bank collapses, gets taken over or splits up.

As a consolation prize I've just booked myself in for an initial telephone consultation with Schroders personal wealth management (part of LBG). Lloyds have been pestering me about personal wealth managers etc for ages despite my not meeting the eligibility criteria so I might as well see what the fuss is about.

Not sure I would consider this a prize. All you have done is booked a call with a highly trained Sales professional whose objective is to sell you something from the limited range of investments they are offering.

If you are interested in investments (which you probably should be if you have lots of cash sloshing about, and if your investment horizon is 7-10 years hence), find yourself an independent financial adviser, who can recommend products from the whole if the market, most likely also at much lower charges than a wealth management firm. Or skill yourself up to DIY it - e.g. by studying monevator.com. Ask on the Savings and Investment board - there are plenty of decent people who can point you in the right direction.

Bridlington1

Band7 said:

Bridlington1 said:

WillPS said:

Bridlington1 said:

I went into my local Lloyds branch today and their response was as expected. They said that I am bared from opening a LBG account for life and that it was a decision taken by head office and cannot be overturned. They also said they had no contact details for the account closure team and had a bit of a moan about how these letters always tell you to go into branch when they can do nothing about it.

Ah that is wrenching news. I wonder how 'for life' these things really are? Surely there's a right to be forgotten at some point if this is a 'no fault' closure?

I don't know but my only hope of opening a Lloyds account in the future seems to be if the bank collapses, gets taken over or splits up.

As a consolation prize I've just booked myself in for an initial telephone consultation with Schroders personal wealth management (part of LBG). Lloyds have been pestering me about personal wealth managers etc for ages despite my not meeting the eligibility criteria so I might as well see what the fuss is about.

Not sure I would consider this a prize. All you have done is booked a call with a highly trained Sales professional whose objective is to sell you something from the limited range of investments they are offering.

If you are interested in investments (which you probably should be if you have lots of cash sloshing about, and if your investment horizon is 7-10 years hence), find yourself an independent financial adviser, who can recommend products from the whole if the market, most likely also at much lower charges than a wealth management firm. Or skill yourself up to DIY it - e.g. by studying monevator.com. Ask on the Savings and Investment board - there are plenty of decent people who can point you in the right direction.

As Schroders are part of LBG I can't imagine they'd let me keep any products they offer me anyway. I only booked the appointment because Lloyds have been pestering me about it for ages, it is a free appointment and as LBG are getting rid of me in a couple of months I wanted to see what the fuss was about largely to satisfy my own curiosity before I go.

With the exception of:

• Around £100 in Wealthify which is the result of the £50 wealthify cashback offer and a year's worth of £1 and £2 DDS I'd paid into it for the sake of the rewards accounts and switching offers.
• £50 in CMC invest, which is all of which is money CMC gave me as part of their sign up offer which I will be withdrawing once it becomes available to withdraw 
• £30 in Wombat invest, which is all money that they gave me from their refer-a-friend offer which I shall withdraw once I'm able to.

I have no investments and shall hold off investing for the next couple of years.

As things stand my general plan is to keep saving every penny I can get my hands on and hopefully buy a somewhere outright once I've finished uni (I live in the north before anyone asks so properties are pretty cheap in the area I am looking to buy in compared to the national average). This will be 2024 at the earliest but likely to be 2025 as I plan on doing a masters degree as well. From that point onwards once I've got an emergency fund stashed away in a load of regular savers I plan to take the amount I would be paying in rent had I not bought outright and save that into a pension plus a bit extra so I shall look into things like that in a lot more detail nearer the time with my focus on pensions savings first.

Fear not though, once I'm in a position to start investing properly my first port of call will be monevator.com and of course this forum.

I tend to be instinctively suspicious of salesmen but occasionally they do come up with some good ideas which are worth consideration, such as when I did a financial health check with Natwest last March and they suggested I should consider investing regularly, which led to me using wealthify to satisfy the 2 DD requirement for their reward account from the following month.

pridehappy

I can’t really advise on what went wrong, although I can confirm Lloyds Banking Group fraud prevention is atrocious. They seem to allow actual fraud through and stop everyday customers just trying to use their products.

So far, I’ve found most reliable, trusting and supporting ones to be Virgin Money and Nationwide if it helps - both of which have a decent selection of good quality products.

Frequentlyhere

pridehappy said:

I can’t really advise on what went wrong, although I can confirm Lloyds Banking Group fraud prevention is atrocious. They seem to allow actual fraud through and stop everyday customers just trying to use their products.

So far, I’ve found most reliable, trusting and supporting ones to be Virgin Money and Nationwide if it helps - both of which have a decent selection of good quality products.

Just want to second this. I've taken now to not setting or amending payees unless absolutely necessary with LBG, as I have fully come to expect the LBG interrogation. My wife was once left near tears a few years back as they harrassed her for nearly 30 minutes asking all sorts of arcane details about everything from our broadband setup to whether I was forcing her into making transactions.

Whilst of course checks are necessary sometimes, no other bank seems to find this level of intrusiveness necessary. In my experience at least, they have the balance wrong. 

I would however suggest doing any required activity on mobile app. I have yet (cross fingers) to trip their fraud wires when setting up payees on mobile. I think because they effectively trust it more than as your own device rather than via the web.