Santander blocked my account without any reason

Malthusian

a7ash said:
I have decided to wait another week for Santander to get back to me, else I will approach that expensive lawyer.

What do you expect them to achieve, other than making you at least £1,800 poorer, that the Ombudsman will not eventually achieve for free?

born_again

a7ash said:

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.

No disrespect to yourself in this situation. But "All of this is legally earned," is a very ambiguous statement.

What you feel legal & what Santander feel is, can be 2 totally different things. Same as where the funds came from, which could be the root of the issue.

As to police & other accounts. If Santander do feel once they have concluded their investigations that wrong doing is involved. At that point would be when that happens.

a7ash

born_again said:

a7ash said:

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.

No disrespect to yourself in this situation. But "All of this is legally earned," is a very ambiguous statement.

What you feel legal & what Santander feel is, can be 2 totally different things. Same as where the funds came from, which could be the root of the issue.

As to police & other accounts. If Santander do feel once they have concluded their investigations that wrong doing is involved. At that point would be when that happens.

The funds came from my limited company as dividend since 2 years. I have already paid self assessment tax on it.

Yes, I have approached the financial ombudsman, but I think the average wait time is 4 months.

ranciduk

I wonder if Farage was with Santander too??

Middle_of_the_Road

ranciduk said:

I wonder if Farage was with Santander too??

Think it might be HSBC as he just sadi they could get him a personal account with their sister bank, but not a business account.

xylophone

The funds came from my limited company 

Is it possible that Santander is investigating whether you are using personal accounts for business purposes?

kaMelo

a7ash said:

born_again said:

a7ash said:

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.

No disrespect to yourself in this situation. But "All of this is legally earned," is a very ambiguous statement.

What you feel legal & what Santander feel is, can be 2 totally different things. Same as where the funds came from, which could be the root of the issue.

As to police & other accounts. If Santander do feel once they have concluded their investigations that wrong doing is involved. At that point would be when that happens.

The funds came from my limited company as dividend since 2 years. I have already paid self assessment tax on it.

Yes, I have approached the financial ombudsman, but I think the average wait time is 4 months.

If your complaint is already with the ombudsman then there really is nothing more you can do. Employing a solicitor wouldn't speed anything up either.

Whilst you think the accounts are blocked for no good reason, Santander definitely have a reason, they just haven't told you what it is. 

Whether it is a good reason is something you may never know but I would expect Santander to disclose more information to the Ombudsman to explain their decision, the Ombudsman can therefore decide whether it is or is not a good reason, or something out of their remit.

Whatever the reason, as I mentioned earlier, Santander cannot deprive you of your income. Visiting a branch with proof of earnings/benefit entitlement and ID should give you access to those earnings/benefits.

Proof of your dividend income from your company should therefore give you access to the amounts proven no matter what the reasons the account is frozen.

grumbler

xylophone said:

The funds came from my limited company 

Is it possible that Santander is investigating whether you are using personal accounts for business purposes?

Yeah, this really takes months to investigate and requires blocking the account and keeping the  customer in the dark.

a7ash

I have now got separate closure letters for all my 3 accounts that I had with Santander in the mail. 

A cheque for one of my accounts also arrived separately for 20k which I promptly encashed. 

When I called them , they said other cheques are in the mail. I hope to get them soon. The other cheques for my two accounts are 66k total, so hope Royal Mail doesn’t lose it. I am still surprised - they send all these by 2nd class post. 

No reason for closing bank account was given, the closure letter only said -  it’s down to their company policies and they can stop banking facilities to a customer at any time.

No notice was given to me for bank account closure, just closure letters by second class post for a customer who maintained north of 85k, not to mention, two and half months of limbo when they couldn’t give me any information. 

happybagger

Thanks for the update.
Look on the good side, you were considering wasting £1800 on achieving this.