Metro bank - can’t withdraw my money

Dexterdobree

I’ve just opened a savings account paid in a quid to test and then tried to take out again it wouldn’t let me and asked me to phone them I did this and they told me my account was frozen and to try again so 24 hours later tried again and still wouldn’t let me withdraw so don’t touch them with a barge pole Glad I only paid in a quid !!! 

Bigwheels1111

Depositing £1 and withdrawing it straight away, well that doesn’t look suspicious does it 😱
Blame you bank for protecting you.

Middle_of_the_Road

Bigwheels1111 said:

Depositing £1 and withdrawing it straight away, well that doesn’t look suspicious does it 😱
Blame you bank for protecting you.

It's often mentioned on here that people make test payments to check the correct operation of a new account. On the surface, nothing wrong with doing this. Banks though have a hair trigger on anything looking like money laundering, and will likely be flagged as suspicious activity.
I don't do these test payments, as I have enough confidence that providing you input the correct details, the payments will reach their correct destination. If you have to do a test deposit, don't proceed to instantly withdraw it, for the above reason. Banks don't routinely prevent customers from making withdrawals, so I don't see the need to bounce money through a new account.

grumbler

IIRC, YBS for 14 days don't allow withdrawals from newly opened savings accounts. I don't care - and have £23K there (used to have £85K).

After all, they are savings accounts, not current.

Rawrzy

Was this on the app? I had something weird where I tried to withdraw and it error'd. Turns out its because you need to set up a nominated bank, but you can't do that in the app, and it doesn't tell you that. I just happened to try it on the browser version instead after because I remember reading the nominated account stipulation when opening it. On the browser it does actually tell you to set a nominated account, and once you've done that then you can withdraw to that account on the app too...

friolento

@Dexterdobree I just responded to your duplicate post on this issue here https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/80404795/#Comment_80404795

friolento

grumbler said:

IIRC, YBS for 14 days don't allow withdrawals from newly opened savings accounts. I don't care - and have £23K there (used to have £85K).

After all, they are savings accounts, not current.

I think it is very sensible to ascertain how withdrawals work before committing large sums of money. YBS savings are popular so many people will know how their withdrawals work but Metro is an outlier which has only recently appeared on the savings account scene. The good news is, their withdrawals work instantly once you have figured out that you must set up what they call a beneficiary account.

On-the-coast

Agree with some of the above.  I’ve set up a lot of bank accounts.  I never consider setup complete until I’ve tried both sending and returning money.  

Quite a few accounts have insisted on a pc web browser login before setting up a first new payee, while everything else has been app based.