Nationwide Blocked Me

Malthusian

Writing to Swansea seems time consuming and as Section62 said, if the complaint handler doesn't understand what you are complaining about then it becomes difficult to turn things around.

Just in case it is useful in future: you could have registered a formal complaint by emailing the fraud department and making it clear you were making a formal complaint, with no need to find an envelope and a stamp. (Putting "FORMAL COMPLAINT" in the header and/or signing off with "For avoidance of doubt, this should be considered a formal complaint" removes any risk of being misinterpreted.) Financial companies are not allowed to restrict how their customers can register formal complaints.
Historically, consumer champions always advised people to send a letter by recorded delivery, because if the company ignored it, they could go to the Ombudsman after 8 weeks and the financial company wouldn't be able to claim "this is the first we've heard of it" as a defence. Phone calls and emails had a risk of vanishing into the ether.
Nowadays an email inbox that will send an automated acknowledgment along the lines of "We have received your email and will respond within 5 working days" (not "This is an unmonitored email address") is just as good as a letter by recorded delivery, as long as you keep the "sent items" email at your end. You were getting responses from the fraud team's email address so that would have been a perfectly good way to raise a formal complaint. 

The reason is, I transferred £350 to my friend. Then same day, transferred £600 to him.
He was setting me up in an investment.
NW were trying to protect me from sending money to what they thought is a scammer.

Well, usually it would be. Friends don't normally transfer money to friends to "set up an investment". 

MeteredOut

Mark_Lion said:

BooJewels said:

I transferred the money using my laptop on NW website. I did not get a warning.
The friend receiving it said several times on whatsapp, he had not received it.
It was a Sunday, so maybe NW were closed.
I then found I had been blocked, then much later found this email from them...

[snipped pasted email content]

If it was a Sunday and you didn't read and respond to the email sent to you in a timely manner, as per the bit I've emboldened, it's possible that it's just a timing matter and you can hopefully resolve it.

I hope it is a timing thing.
I emailed NW Fraud with the details. NW Fraud have had plenty of time to reply.

grumbler said:

cloud_dog said:

I think we might be ignoring the reason why NW felt the need to take action.

Do we know the reason?

If so, NW won't respond to information requests, and are legally not allowed to do so.

Only if it's suspected ML.

The reason is, I transferred £350 to my friend. Then same day, transferred £600 to him.
He was setting me up in an investment.
NW were trying to protect me from sending money to what they thought is a scammer.
I emailed NW Fraud with the details of my friend and the investment.
The £600 has been returned to my account from NW.
I gave him more money in cash withdrawal from ATM. I have completed my investment payment. I do not need to pay any more.

"An investment". 

It could be the recipient account ("your friend") has flags against it. Perhaps other "friends" of this person have flagged the account as a scammer account.

Are you 100% sure the account does belong to your friend?

Is this friend regulated for investment purposes? Should they be?

Mark_Lion

I phoned NW yesterday (Monday), got a helpful lady. She said they were waiting for me to send evidence. 
I told her, I have sent evidence and gave her a reference number. She was surprised I had a reference number.
She put me on hold while she looked at it. She came back to say I sent a lot of detail, could I continue to hold.
I said no because I had to go to work. This week I am working 10:30 am to 11:30 pm, (NHS). I was on the phone nearly 1 hour.
She gave me a direct phone number to the Fraud department so I don't have to go through the first stages and wait.

I phoned just now, got her again. She put me on hold, came back, said the man is still looking at my case.
Asked if he could call me back. I am a ambulance driver, so I told her I can only take a phone call before I leave for work at 9:30 am.
I do not expect a phone call before then.

I am fed up with this. 

Unnecessarily blocked and they seem to not bother about resolving it.

BooJewels

I think you're just going to have to be patient whilst they attend to this and give them chance to do so.  But I think you also need to take some responsibility for this yourself too - by your own admission, they sent you an email asking that you call them about the queried transaction, but you didn't see it 'until much later' and that message did state they might have to block your account until they have contact with you. 

The error is perhaps in how long they've taken to resolve it since you sent in your evidence.  I wonder if it ramps it to the next level if you don't respond in time?  The blocked transaction I had was very similar, albeit with a different bank - that was 2 transactions to the same person and they blocked the second and the alert did say that if I didn't respond within 48 hours my account would be frozen.  I rang straight away and it was resolved in 20 minutes.

Mark_Lion

Malthusian said:

Writing to Swansea seems time consuming and as Section62 said, if the complaint handler doesn't understand what you are complaining about then it becomes difficult to turn things around.

Just in case it is useful in future: you could have registered a formal complaint by emailing the fraud department and making it clear you were making a formal complaint, with no need to find an envelope and a stamp. (Putting "FORMAL COMPLAINT" in the header and/or signing off with "For avoidance of doubt, this should be considered a formal complaint" removes any risk of being misinterpreted.) Financial companies are not allowed to restrict how their customers can register formal complaints.
Historically, consumer champions always advised people to send a letter by recorded delivery, because if the company ignored it, they could go to the Ombudsman after 8 weeks and the financial company wouldn't be able to claim "this is the first we've heard of it" as a defence. Phone calls and emails had a risk of vanishing into the ether.
Nowadays an email inbox that will send an automated acknowledgment along the lines of "We have received your email and will respond within 5 working days" (not "This is an unmonitored email address") is just as good as a letter by recorded delivery, as long as you keep the "sent items" email at your end. You were getting responses from the fraud team's email address so that would have been a perfectly good way to raise a formal complaint. 

The reason is, I transferred £350 to my friend. Then same day, transferred £600 to him.
He was setting me up in an investment.
NW were trying to protect me from sending money to what they thought is a scammer.

Well, usually it would be. Friends don't normally transfer money to friends to "set up an investment". 

 Thank you. I will refer to this if I get to complaint stage, which I am feeling close to doing.

grumbler said:

cloud_dog said:

I think we might be ignoring the reason why NW felt the need to take action.

Do we know the reason?

If so, NW won't respond to information requests, and are legally not allowed to do so.

Only if it's suspected ML.

The reason is, I transferred £350 to my friend. Then same day, transferred £600 to him.
He was setting me up in an investment.
NW were trying to protect me from sending money to what they thought is a scammer.
I emailed NW Fraud with the details of my friend and the investment.
The £600 has been returned to my account from NW.
I gave him more money in cash withdrawal from ATM. I have completed my investment payment. I do not need to pay any more.

"An investment". 

It could be the recipient account ("your friend") has flags against it. Perhaps other "friends" of this person have flagged the account as a scammer account.

Are you 100% sure the account does belong to your friend?

Is this friend regulated for investment purposes? Should they be?

It is a investment with a company called GS Partners. My friend has gotten his wife and family into the investment. 
It is transferring cash to Crypto. (Not Bitcoin).
My friend had some Crypto available to deposit into my account. I paid him back with cash.
Tried to transfer the money from NW, so that started the blockage.

I have started with a low investment. I am getting a weekly return, which I can see now, on my GS Partners account page.
I will not put any more money into it. The next stage up is a big investment which I am not willing to do. 

artyboy

Mark_Lion said:

Malthusian said:

Writing to Swansea seems time consuming and as Section62 said, if the complaint handler doesn't understand what you are complaining about then it becomes difficult to turn things around.

Just in case it is useful in future: you could have registered a formal complaint by emailing the fraud department and making it clear you were making a formal complaint, with no need to find an envelope and a stamp. (Putting "FORMAL COMPLAINT" in the header and/or signing off with "For avoidance of doubt, this should be considered a formal complaint" removes any risk of being misinterpreted.) Financial companies are not allowed to restrict how their customers can register formal complaints.
Historically, consumer champions always advised people to send a letter by recorded delivery, because if the company ignored it, they could go to the Ombudsman after 8 weeks and the financial company wouldn't be able to claim "this is the first we've heard of it" as a defence. Phone calls and emails had a risk of vanishing into the ether.
Nowadays an email inbox that will send an automated acknowledgment along the lines of "We have received your email and will respond within 5 working days" (not "This is an unmonitored email address") is just as good as a letter by recorded delivery, as long as you keep the "sent items" email at your end. You were getting responses from the fraud team's email address so that would have been a perfectly good way to raise a formal complaint. 

The reason is, I transferred £350 to my friend. Then same day, transferred £600 to him.
He was setting me up in an investment.
NW were trying to protect me from sending money to what they thought is a scammer.

Well, usually it would be. Friends don't normally transfer money to friends to "set up an investment". 

 Thank you. I will refer to this if I get to complaint stage, which I am feeling close to doing.

grumbler said:

cloud_dog said:

I think we might be ignoring the reason why NW felt the need to take action.

Do we know the reason?

If so, NW won't respond to information requests, and are legally not allowed to do so.

Only if it's suspected ML.

The reason is, I transferred £350 to my friend. Then same day, transferred £600 to him.
He was setting me up in an investment.
NW were trying to protect me from sending money to what they thought is a scammer.
I emailed NW Fraud with the details of my friend and the investment.
The £600 has been returned to my account from NW.
I gave him more money in cash withdrawal from ATM. I have completed my investment payment. I do not need to pay any more.

"An investment". 

It could be the recipient account ("your friend") has flags against it. Perhaps other "friends" of this person have flagged the account as a scammer account.

Are you 100% sure the account does belong to your friend?

Is this friend regulated for investment purposes? Should they be?

It is a investment with a company called GS Partners. My friend has gotten his wife and family into the investment. 
It is transferring cash to Crypto. (Not Bitcoin).
My friend had some Crypto available to deposit into my account. I paid him back with cash.
Tried to transfer the money from NW, so that started the blockage.

I have started with a low investment. I am getting a weekly return, which I can see now, on my GS Partners account page.
I will not put any more money into it. The next stage up is a big investment which I am not willing to do. 

I can't imagine why NW could possibly have any issue with that 🙄

JamesRobinson48

There is a Financial Conduct Authority warning out about a business trading as GS Partnership. 

https://www.fca.org.uk/news/warnings/gs-partnership

IMHO, probably NW turns out to have been prescient. All best wishes recovering the balance on your GS Partners account, whenever you may wish to do so.

BooJewels

"My friend had some Crypto available to deposit into my account. I paid him back with cash.
Tried to transfer the money from NW, so that started the blockage."

Perhaps if you'd mentioned that earlier on you could have saved everyone the effort of trying to help you - I think you'll find that is where the issue lies.

Mark_Lion

BooJewels said:

"My friend had some Crypto available to deposit into my account. I paid him back with cash.
Tried to transfer the money from NW, so that started the blockage."

Perhaps if you'd mentioned that earlier on you could have saved everyone the effort of trying to help you - I think you'll find that is where the issue lies.

Really? So it is my fault...sorry.
NW know it and still have me blocked.

Section62

Mark_Lion said:

BooJewels said:

"My friend had some Crypto available to deposit into my account. I paid him back with cash.
Tried to transfer the money from NW, so that started the blockage."

Perhaps if you'd mentioned that earlier on you could have saved everyone the effort of trying to help you - I think you'll find that is where the issue lies.

Really? So it is my fault...sorry.
NW know it and still have me blocked.

Did NW tell you about their scamchecker service?

https://www.nationwide.co.uk/help/fraud-and-security/scam-protection-promise/