Bank blocked my current and savings.a/cs.and say they will switch money from my a/cts in stages

Spittykitty

I had  current and savings a/cts with the co-op bank.  I was trying to update my contact details and the bank blocked my account - no reason given.  I couldn't even get money out of an ATM.  Ring the Bank am told by one agent -"We can open a new account for you, get you a new PIN card ect.  Ring back to do this am told "You can't open another bank account with us, you have to switch to another bank and then you can come back to us"  Well, who's going to do that, I'll switch banks but I'll stay switched.  So I switch to Santander but nothing arrives in my new account. Back to the Co-op who say "We will only transfer the money across in stages"  Is this legal?  Letter to Co-op bank, negative reviews on Trustpilot force a reply from Co-op on 18 July who say the money will be transferred across with 5-7 days.  That was on July 18, check my new bank a/c to date I have received £252.59 pence from the Co-op and apparently - nothing at all from my savings a/c apart from £8.74 in interest. The Co-op have even blocked my 'phone number.  . Santander say they can't do anything about it and I am desperate. Most banks will give you a certain number of years to go back and look at your old accounts not Co-op.

eskbanker

Spittykitty said:

I had  current and savings a/cts with the co-op bank.  I was trying to update my contact details and the bank blocked my account - no reason given.  I couldn't even get money out of an ATM.  Ring the Bank am told by one agent -"We can open a new account for you, get you a new PIN card ect.  Ring back to do this am told "You can't open another bank account with us, you have to switch to another bank and then you can come back to us"  Well, who's going to do that, I'll switch banks but I'll stay switched.  So I switch to Santander but nothing arrives in my new account. Back to the Co-op who say "We will only transfer the money across in stages"  Is this legal?  Letter to Co-op bank, negative reviews on Trustpilot force a reply from Co-op on 18 July who say the money will be transferred across with 5-7 days.  That was on July 18, check my new bank a/c to date I have received £252.59 pence from the Co-op and apparently - nothing at all from my savings a/c apart from £8.74 in interest. The Co-op have even blocked my 'phone number.  . Santander say they can't do anything about it and I am desperate. Most banks will give you a certain number of years to go back and look at your old accounts not Co-op.

I've never heard of such a transfer being staged - was this enacted via the Current Account Switching Service?

Note that this only switches a current account and won't affect a savings account, so you'd need to empty that independently of the current account switch.

However, the bigger issue is why they blocked your account, didn't they give any indication of why this was?  If they suspected fraud, for example, they'd shut the account down immediately and probably arrange a CIFAS marker, which would effectively get accounts elsewhere closed too, so important to establish the circumstances in more detail....

Zanderman

Spittykitty said:

I had  current and savings a/cts with the co-op bank.  I was trying to update my contact details and the bank blocked my account - no reason given.  I couldn't even get money out of an ATM.  Ring the Bank am told by one agent -"We can open a new account for you, get you a new PIN card ect.  Ring back to do this am told "You can't open another bank account with us, you have to switch to another bank and then you can come back to us"  Well, who's going to do that, I'll switch banks but I'll stay switched.  So I switch to Santander but nothing arrives in my new account. Back to the Co-op who say "We will only transfer the money across in stages"  Is this legal?  Letter to Co-op bank, negative reviews on Trustpilot force a reply from Co-op on 18 July who say the money will be transferred across with 5-7 days.  That was on July 18, check my new bank a/c to date I have received £252.59 pence from the Co-op and apparently - nothing at all from my savings a/c apart from £8.74 in interest. The Co-op have even blocked my 'phone number.  . Santander say they can't do anything about it and I am desperate. Most banks will give you a certain number of years to go back and look at your old accounts not Co-op.

Unless you've instructed them to move the savings balance to your old current account the savings will stay where they are - when you 'switch banks' using the switching service you're not switching all your accounts, you're just switching one current account.

Any other accounts, current or savings, at the old bank will stay exactly where they are.  So you may be waiting in vain for the savings account money if you think that's coming via the switch. It won't - unless you moved the balance to the current account. The interest arriving is an oddity but I'd guess the interest was being paid into the current account when it was awarded each time?

Santander are correct in saying they can't help - as they can't access a savings account at another bank. You need to talk to the coop bank again.