Money Laundering??

Frustrated1969

My husband has made a purchase at an auction house. The auction house won't allow me to pay as my husband made the purchase due to "money laundering rules". I want to pay this on my credit card. They will only accept a payment from a credit card in his name (he doesn't have one) or from a bank account in his name or a joint account.
We do have a joint savings account, but his bank account is the one we use for all direct debits so there isn't a "spare" £1300.00 in there.
Is the auction house right, and if not is there a website/government site, which I can sent to them to show that money laundering rules don't apply in this case.
Any help would be much appreciated.

molerat

The auction house can set whatever rules they like over payments, auction houses are a good way of laundering money so they want to keep themselves out of any possible criminal investigations.  How were you intending to pay the credit credit card bill ?  Just move the money from that source to his bank account.

Woodstok2000

As your husband doesn't have a credit card, how was he planning to pay for the purchase? What's stopping him using those funds to pay for it, or was the plan always to use the card in your name? 

MyRealNameToo

Frustrated1969 said:

My husband has made a purchase at an auction house. The auction house won't allow me to pay as my husband made the purchase due to "money laundering rules". I want to pay this on my credit card. They will only accept a payment from a credit card in his name (he doesn't have one) or from a bank account in his name or a joint account.
We do have a joint savings account, but his bank account is the one we use for all direct debits so there isn't a "spare" £1300.00 in there.
Is the auction house right, and if not is there a website/government site, which I can sent to them to show that money laundering rules don't apply in this case.
Any help would be much appreciated.

Add him as a secondary cardholder to your account then the card will be in his name. You can cancel it as soon as the payment is made if you dont want this to be a long term arrangement. 

AML regulations dont say what you should and shouldn't do, they are much vaguer than that and talk about principles. The advantage is that it doesnt need new legislation to be passed each time what good practice is evolves, the downside is that businesses are left to come up with their own rules to meet the principles and never know for certain if they are at the appropriate controls or not, similarly consumers can't challenge them on what rules have been applied. 

Auction Houses are one of the industries under tighter AML rules than your average cornershop etc 

Grumpy_chap

Frustrated1969 said:

We do have a joint savings account, but his bank account is the one we use for all direct debits so there isn't a "spare" £1300.00 in there.

Move the money from the savings account to his bank account used for the direct debits and then pay the auction house from that account.