New Lloyds Account - Don't make this mistake

masonic

SevenOfNine said:

First we saw of this 'new' checking was last month, after YEARS of banking with Lloyds & shifting money in/out the account, 'linked' to double figures of assorted savings, to there's been 'through traffic' unhindered many, many times.

Until last month! £30k passing through, followed a few days later by £7k passing through, the latter being 'suspended'. Number to call went straight to fraud dept.  20 'security questions' later & transaction was released straight away.

Most others that have reported this in other threads have said they were told to present themselves to the bank. There seems to be activity/fines regarding money laundering, so perhaps banks are tightening up their 'checking procedures?

This reminds me of an issue I had, though this was several years ago (c. 2018). Lloyds took umbrage about something similar with me. A transaction was blocked and I briefly saw an error message telling me to contact them, but I found I was able to send the money to another of my accounts and route it to where I needed it, and didn't bother to follow up with them. Months later I went to a branch to pay in a cheque and they couldn't do it. Turns out there was a security hold on my account that did not affect my ability to make subsequent online payments, but did prevent the branch from processing transactions. In the end the branch couldn't do anything but call the fraud team on my behalf and pass the phone to me to answer some questions. So branch is not always able to help, even if you can get to one. I've never had anything like it since, despite similar activity.

I suspect these things come in waves, as they tweak their detection systems.

friolento

masonic said:

SevenOfNine said:

First we saw of this 'new' checking was last month, after YEARS of banking with Lloyds & shifting money in/out the account, 'linked' to double figures of assorted savings, to there's been 'through traffic' unhindered many, many times.

Until last month! £30k passing through, followed a few days later by £7k passing through, the latter being 'suspended'. Number to call went straight to fraud dept.  20 'security questions' later & transaction was released straight away.

Most others that have reported this in other threads have said they were told to present themselves to the bank. There seems to be activity/fines regarding money laundering, so perhaps banks are tightening up their 'checking procedures?

This reminds me of an issue I had, though this was several years ago (c. 2018). Lloyds took umbrage about something similar with me. A transaction was blocked and I briefly saw an error message telling me to contact them, but I found I was able to send the money to another of my accounts and route it to where I needed it, and didn't bother to follow up with them. Months later I went to a branch to pay in a cheque and they couldn't do it. Turns out there was a security hold on my account that did not affect my ability to make subsequent online payments, but did prevent the branch from processing transactions. In the end the branch couldn't do anything but call the fraud team on my behalf and pass the phone to me to answer some questions. So branch is not always able to help, even if you can get to one. I've never had anything like it since, despite similar activity.

I suspect these things come in waves, as they tweak their detection systems.

As annoying as it is when we get caught by the fraud prevention systems out of the blue, I do understand why it can happen, and we should be reassured that there is no guarantee that our transactions won’t ever get stopped. If fraud detection operated in a completely predictable manner, fraudsters would no doubt find loopholes over time, and exploit them.