Santander blocked my account without any reason

boingy

Apologies if this has already been suggested but email the CEO. It can get you past the Customer Services brick wall. Be polite, state the amount of time it has been blocked and ask what you need to do to get it unblocked.
Try these two addresses:

nathan.bostock@santander.co.uk

ceo@santander.co.uk

Malthusian

a7ash said:

I have contacted a law firm which has said - As 42 days have now passed the bank is unlikely to have any lawful authority to freeze your funds absent a court order. We would commence a claim against the Bank by drafting a Letter of Claim. The cost of this is approximately £1,500 plus VAT.

If Santander does actually have a lawful authority to freeze your funds, paying £1,800 to send a letter of claim would be a waste of money. All that will happen is your solicitors will come back to tell you "turns out they do have lawful authority, thank you for your money, come again".
If Santander has no lawful authority to freeze your funds and is simply being incompetently slow or has made a mistake, paying £1,800 to send a letter of claim would be a waste of money as the Ombudsman will eventually sort it out for free.
The only way it makes sense to spend money on solicitors is if the Ombudsman comes back to say "Santander does have a legitimate reason to hold the funds, although we're not at liberty to reveal it, complaint not upheld", and you take the bank to court in order to challenge the court order that led them to freeze the funds. That would cost a lot more than £1,800.

Momanns

a7ash said:

There is unfortunately no update to the situation. My bank accounts with Santander are blocked since 14th April ( There are 3 of them , totally about 86K ). All of this is legally earned, I was just keeping it with Santander due to their high interest rates.

The Bank keeps saying "There is no further information we can provide, and if and when the situation changes, we will get back to you."

I have contacted a law firm which has said - As 42 days have now passed the bank is unlikely to have any lawful authority to freeze your funds absent a court order. We would commence a claim against the Bank by drafting a Letter of Claim. The cost of this is approximately £1,500 plus VAT.

I am really not sure the above would help, but would love to know if if I should go for it.

I have a formal complaint with Santander and have gone to the Financial Ombudsman with that complaint number.

As far as I understand, the bank needs an Account Freezing Order to keep the account suspended beyond 7 days + a further 31 working days, I am way past those deadlines now.

Some other legal firms have said they cant help me until I get an Account Freezing Order, but what would I do if no Account Freezing order is ever sent by Santander ? Also what if they have never filed a Suspicious Account Report ?

My accounts have disappeared from Internet banking.

Is there anything else I can do ?

The UK banking system is supposed to be the best in the world. How can I bring Santander to book here ?

OP - You have still not answered any questions by members of the forum trying to help with finding out why the accounts are blocked. If you no longer have access to internet banking this has also been sanctioned by Santander. Santander will not have taken all this action for no reason. 

As others have said, you will likely be throwing £1,500 away. Wait to see what happens with the Ombudsman.

If you have changed addresses or moved it may also be worth checking your details are up to date in case correspondence has been sent to the address they hold on file. 

Also worth noting that the DAML (Consent) moratorium period can now be further extended for a successive series of 31 days, for up to six months in total. Whilst speculating, this may mean a Forfeiture Order or similar has not yet been obtained.

Swipe

Either the OP is not telling us the whole truth or the bank has made a mistake of epic proportions. 

a7ash

Swipe said:

Either the OP is not telling us the whole truth or the bank has made a mistake of epic proportions. 

I would suggest not to sabotage this thread by claiming that I am not telling the whole truth or not answering the questions.

I am an innocent person who is unfortunatley caught in these stupid powers of the bank being within its right to not give any reasons to block someone's account and treat a honest hardwoking citizen as a criminal. If I was in the wrong, all my bank accounts should have been blocked and the police should be at my door, which does not seem to be the case.

I have faced a tremendous amount of mental agony and also considered calling Samaritans - most of my savings to the tune of 85.5K are locked up in this bank and statements like the above dont help.

I have decided to wait another week for Santander to get back to me, else I will approach that expensive lawyer.

I have also drafted emails for Santander CEO, the Local MP, and the media. 

Its sad that there is no help available for people like me.

I have several websites telling me the same thing  -

https://www.brettwilson.co.uk/blog/my-bank-account-is-frozen-what-should-i-do/

and 

https://www.franciswilksandjones.co.uk/frozen-bank-account-guide/

All of these these say that they need a court order beyond  42 days and my account is blocked since 14th April. 

I understand that to continue legally blocking the account, they need a court order, no court order has been produced and they are acting illegally.

Bigwheels1111

After reading about your situation I’ve removed all my funds from Santander.
I use First Direct as my main account, I have several others with 2-3k in.
To cover myself.
FD is used for all my savings and investments, funding and receiving money.
Apart from holding up payments to new accounts they have been fine.
Plus paid me lost interest and good will gestures for time and effort calling them to sort.

With banks being paranoid multiple accounts are a must nowadays.
Hope it gets sorted soon.

a7ash

The thing that spooks me is this - Sure, they have the authority to block the bank account for 42 days without telling us the reason, but beyond 42 days, they absolutely need a court order as per the links in my last message. My account are blocked since 14 April and today is 28 June. I have faced financial hardship, mental agony, filed complaint, but they dont care. 

Why would they continue to not tell me why they blocked my account and yet, why would they not produce the court order ? 

This is definitely not legal. 

I hope to pursue this via proper channels ( if I can ) so that it doesnt happen to anyone else.

Gsaver1

I had accounts with Santander many years ago. After a bad experience, I decided I would never use them again. What I find about financial institutions they are really out of touch with reality. Say if the roles were reversed would they tolerate the torture that you have been put through?

I hope you get this resolved in the coming days without having to contact a lawyer.  

ranciduk

I opened an account with them years ago

got a letter with the account number and sort code etc

tried to fund if from my Halifax current account and Halifax said the account details are incorrect and to contact Santander 

Santander said details are correct and to get back to halifax

halifax said details are definitely wrong and to get back to Santander

back and forth

binned off the account without getting a penny into it

Farcical...

Momanns

a7ash said:

The thing that spooks me is this - Sure, they have the authority to block the bank account for 42 days without telling us the reason, but beyond 42 days, they absolutely need a court order as per the links in my last message. My account are blocked since 14 April and today is 28 June. I have faced financial hardship, mental agony, filed complaint, but they dont care. 

Why would they continue to not tell me why they blocked my account and yet, why would they not produce the court order ? 

This is definitely not legal. 

I hope to pursue this via proper channels ( if I can ) so that it doesnt happen to anyone else.

Have a look at my last message - technically the account can be blocked without a Court Order for around 6 months. That's assuming it's AML. If there is any fraud/sanctions link (not saying there is but just thinking why Santander may have kept the blocks on without a court order) then all these timeframes do not apply. 

Ombudsman and double check your statements in the months leading up to the block and check your contact details are all correct.