LBG closing all my accounts on 18th May

Sea_Shell

Bridlington1 said:

The thing that concerns me is that I don't think I'm a profitable customer for any of my banking providers. If the banks go closing my accounts simply because I'm unprofitable I won't have any accounts left at this rate.

What happens if one runs out of banks that'll have them as a customer?   

I'd say most of us round these parts are not "profitable" customers for the banks.   As we tend not to pay them anything, but rather get paid...(other than maybe £2 to Santander. )


Did you ever use any of your LBG current accounts to actually pay for stuff, on debit card?     I wonder if this would go some way to prove that it is a 'real' account, that is used, not just a 'spare', for us to hopefully avoid this happening to us?

 

flaneurs_lobster

Bridlington1 said:

Pity, I was hoping they'd give me a free trip to Scotland as part of the complaint I shall make. Oh well at least it should save me some time.

The way your luck is running they'll invite you to the BOS branch in Wishaw.

flaneurs_lobster

Sea_Shell said:

Did you ever use any of your LBG current accounts to actually pay for stuff, on debit card?     I wonder if this would go some way to prove that it is a 'real' account, that is used, not just a 'spare', for us to hopefully avoid this happening to us?

I don't know if this makes any difference but whenever I've opened a current account just for switching (maybe 10 in the last 6 months) I make a point of moving £20.13 in by transfer, and withdrawing a tenner at an ATM. It's just to make sure that the account is fully functioning before switching it, trying to minimise any chances of switch glitch. The 13p makes the transferred amount easy to spot when switched.

Bridlington1

Sea_Shell said:

Bridlington1 said:

The thing that concerns me is that I don't think I'm a profitable customer for any of my banking providers. If the banks go closing my accounts simply because I'm unprofitable I won't have any accounts left at this rate.

What happens if one runs out of banks that'll have them as a customer?   

I'd say most of us round these parts are not "profitable" customers for the banks.   As we tend not to pay them anything, but rather get paid...(other than maybe £2 to Santander. )


Did you ever use any of your LBG current accounts to actually pay for stuff, on debit card?     I wonder if this would go some way to prove that it is a 'real' account, that is used, not just a 'spare', for us to hopefully avoid this happening to us?

 

I'll let you know what happens if I run out of banks. 

I did once buy a mobile phone top up with my original Halifax account when it was still an expresscash account but that was in 2019. I've done any spending on my credit cards with the exception of a 5 month period when I had no credit cards so I used Natwest/RBS for the round ups and during the VM switching offer period when I bought £640 worth of supermarket vouchers on the VM debit card

I've used LBG for cash deposits and cheques though.

WillPS

Ah what a gutting letter

I hope merely having the accounts isn't a trigger. I do a fair amount of actual banking with Lloyds but basically none with Halifax other than bouncing money in and debit card transactions out on the 1st of each month. I also hold a packaged bank account with Halifax - hopefully that counts for something in a straightforward 'are we making owt from them' check - still I obviously get way more back from LBG than I give them as it stands.

Worrying times.

Bridlington1

flaneurs_lobster said:

Bridlington1 said:

Pity, I was hoping they'd give me a free trip to Scotland as part of the complaint I shall make. Oh well at least it should save me some time.

The way your luck is running they'll invite you to the BOS branch in Wishaw.

Well I did once get invited to the Newport branch of Monmouthshire BS so near enough.

Section62

Bridlington1 said:

datz said:

That doesn't seem as clear-cut as I was expecting. I mean there is a pattern of taking liberties there (over a single year period), but it's not that excessive. I know people that have taken advantage to a higher degree - granted this was a few years ago now, so maybe banks have been tightening up on what they consider abusive customers (which I would understand from a business perspective).

....

I suspect LBG are just starting to clamp down on us financial tarts and I have proved to be early on in the firing line. Time will tell though. LBG do seem to have been pretty lenient over the years so are possibly trying to rectify this.

I suspect the accounts being opened in January may have simply been the straw that broke the camel's back. With the exception of around £20-30 I stored in the savings account overnight due to me transferring just over £25k into it in January, I have not kept more than £1 in any of them for more than a few seconds. I have been bouncing £1 through each of them once per week to try and make them "active" for they YouGov points.

My transactions are quite frequent, on average I bounce just over £20k/mth through Lloyds as it's my nominated account for quite a few savings accounts. Even then they're all transfers to and from my other bank accounts (all UK accounts).
....

I wonder whether it is your student status which is the issue here.

The current account opening/switching activity is a lot, but possibly not enough to justify closing all your accounts in response (stoping you opening any more might be more proportionate as per the other banking groups).

However in combination with the kind of transaction activity you have going on it may have been that LBG didn't like the look of you.  LBG won't know why you are pushing the £1 payments through the savers, and unless the person/algorithm reviewing your account knows about the YouGov offer then this activity will look very odd indeed.

Also, a student with an (possibly) apparent income of £20k/month isn't your typical student.  Ok, it isn't actually your income, but Lloyds won't know that (the point is often made on the forum that pay-ins =/= income, but the banks won't necessarily know).  This could be a case where there is sufficient conflict between the KYC information and how you are operating the account(s) to flag your actions up as suspicious.

Another possible factor is that students are not unknown for being tricked into money muling/laundering. Having multiple accounts being opened and switched around, and a flow of money around them, might flag up as activity which carries a risk of money muling/laundering being involved. Accounts which are treated as 'throwaway' (or even "burners" as some people seem to call them) might be indistinguishable from those being used by people with criminal intent.

None of the above is intended as a criticism of you or students in general though. It is unlikely you (or we) will ever find out in full what has happened here, but hopefully your experience might prompt others to dial down the sometimes gung-ho over enthusiastic approach encouraged by some (not you).

Commiserations though.  It isn't a nice thing to happen to you, and something many of us probably fear might happen to us as well.

Nebulous2

dealyboy said:

... these comments on donor accounts leads me to a thought ...

I've opened four FlexAccounts with Nationwide over the past four weeks (so far) and I've switched them all. If they were to cancel my FlexDirect account £1,500 earning 5% I would be severely peeved.

I've not breached any rules any terms and they would be breaching my contract to have the account closed, indeed any account where there was an expectation of benefits for credit. But I don't expect them to do so as they have been keeping me informed, notifying me of accounts that are in progress of being switched in online banking.

I have received letters from both Nationwide and Santander suggesting that they would treat me like a prodigal son if I returned i.e. opened a new account.

However if I willfully breached terms and conditions then the other party would be within their rights to end the relationship. 

I've just opened my second flexaccount in 3 years, to switch to Halifax, and I was slightly apprehensive about that.....

k_man

@Bridlington1 said:
I suspect LBG are just starting to clamp down on us financial tarts and I have proved to be early on in the firing line.

I think this may well be the case.

I opened a few saving accounts with LBG (9 across the group), all on the same day.
The following day all were closed with immediate effect (fortunately only the new savings accounts).

These required visits to branches to withdraw the balances, which in total were less than £10.

I fear the big banking clampdown may have begun! 
(At least with LBG).
Let's hope the only trigger is new unusual account behaviour. If they start to review existing ones it will get very messy, as there are a lot of accounts not being used for their intended purpose!

piker57

Bridlington1 said:

datz said:

Bridlington1 said:

AmityNeon said:

Bridlington1 said:

That'll probably explain it then. In January I opened 5 Club Lloyds savers as well as 3 current accounts within LBG (1 with each bank) and have been bouncing £1 through them for the YouGov finance points ever since. My suspicion is now that this has tipped them over the edge. I never thought much of it at the time as I was able to open 3 Halifax reward accounts in a single day last spring but evidently LBG have taken offence by this.

As it's likely an internal commercial decision, I would surmise it's a combination of the overdraft stoozing and the nine(?) current accounts opened within the space of a year (six of which were promptly switched away), in conjunction with a lack of holding any products from which they can profit (e.g. mortgage, credit cards), as well as perhaps not having a long-standing history.

Did they provide any possible avenue for you to potentially explain or appeal? It's terribly unfortunate when an institution makes a final decision of lifelong permanence, without prior warning or providing any form of recourse. At least Skipton BS sent a written notice of admonishment to those regularly depositing via 15+ different debit cards per month over an extended period.

Your experience with Barclays is even more perplexing considering you held the accounts for barely a month or so, and presumably, there was nothing to remotely suggest why they allowed the accounts to be opened, only to forcibly have them closed soon after.

Here is a copy of the letter I got from Halifax. It doesn't look like there's any way back.

I also agree with the post you quoted. It is highly likely to be a commercial decision given the ~2 month notice of closure, and as they haven't placed any additional restrictions on, or frozen, the accounts. But certainly still worth checking the fraud databases for any adverse markers.

I'd also lean towards your activity regarding opening/switching out multiple current accounts, possibly compounded by the savings accounts. I'd be interested to know the timescales, ie how frequent/recent/aggressive, you were with opening those current accounts and switching them out.

I am somewhat wary of not taking too many liberties with, or blatantly taking advantage of, any one banking group. I do also try to avoid opening and immediately switching new accounts, and usually use accounts that were opened many months in advance. The Natwest group still got me though.

LBG have been very "generous" to me over the years, and I really would hate to lose access to their facitlities myself. Thanks for the heads up and (seemingly) being open about the situation - you never do get the full story out of most posters.

I was pretty quick with switching the accounts out. My activity with regards to current accounts are as follows:
BOS:
Account 1 opened 11/8/22, closed 2/9/22
Account 2 opened late August 2022 and is still open to this day. I switched my first Co-op account into it in October/November.
Account 3 opened 3/10/22, closed 12/12/22 (switched into my second Co-op account)
Account 4 opened in January 2023

Halifax:
Account 1 opened Aug 2019 and is first current account I ever opened and has remained with me to this day as my oldest account.
Accounts 2,3 and 4 opened in June 2022 and kept for Halifax reward
Account 5 opened 30/11/2022 and closed on 21/12/22 (switched to Santander so that I could get their student account after Barclays closed mine
Account 6 opened in January 2023 with the BOS one

Lloyds:
Account 1 opened in November 2021, still in use today
Account 2 opened 26/4/22, closed 25/5/22
Account 3 opened 8/8/22, closed 22/8/22
Account 4 opened in January 2023 with the BOS one

So in total 14 current accounts, of which 5 were switched out.

I opened 5 Club Lloyds savers in January 2023 as I have already mentioned earlier in this thread

I have also renewed and closed and reopened 2 Club Lloyds monthly savers, 2 Halifax regular savers, 2 BOS monthly savers and a Lloyds monthly saver in that time.

I chose to be as open and honest as possible as I feel it is of far more use to other forumites to have all the facts in one place and it certainly helped me get to the bottom of this affair a lot quicker than if it had been one of those long and drawn out threads you often see on this forum, so I considered it a no brainer really.

Thanks for the heads up regarding Natwest group.

It looks like I am going to find it difficult to find donor accounts in future now. Virgin doesn't seem to be that usable for opening donor accounts, I can't open a spare Santander account as I have their student account, Barclays is out the equation for the same reason, Virgin looks difficult to open a donor account, I can't switch out Co-op for another couple of months in case the FOS comes up trumps and awards me the £125 for switching a current account to Co-op. First Direct recently declined my application for a current account so presumably that rules out HSBC group as well. All I've feasibly got is Metro and the Natwest group left as donor accounts.

Luckily I do have a spare Natwest and a RBS account which could be utilised in the future though and I hoovered up all the switching incentives last year so it could be a while before they get used.

I’m sorry to read about LBG advising you of the closure of your accounts. Thanks for sharing your activity, your honesty here is commendable. It appears reasonably clear to me that this has nothing to do with the Barclays issue, but solely your actions with LBG.

For example you make reference to refreshing 2 Club Lloyds monthly savers, which is not permitted under the product T&Cs. I appreciate from reading other threads that what you’ve done has been conducted by others, & the view is that although the terms say one thing, in practice LBG have allowed other actions. Perhaps they’ve now decided to act on the breaches of the terms, especially if your actions have been widely implemented by others & they may also find themselves in your position of having accounts closed and the banking relationships terminated.