Hello, this is my first post and I will try and get to the point and keep it as brief as I can and get to the point as there is a LOT of detail regarding my problem.

My names stephen and I opened a bank account with nationwide about a year ago and hardly ever really used it other than to pay for my mortgage and some other DD’s.

On the 22nd of June I sold my car via eBay and received payment for it through PayPal (as PayPal is safe) .

I received the funds for the vehicle which was £18000.

PayPal sent me an email and explained the payment was on hold for 24 hours for security purposes and told me not to release the car.

That was fine,

24 hours passed and I then received an email from PayPal to say that the funds had cleared and I was able to release the item (car).

I contacted the buyer and they then picked the vehicle up to which they did.

I then proceeded to withdraw the funds from my PayPal to my bank to which again I received an email from PayPal to say that it could take upto 72 hours for further security checks. That was great.

On the 25 of June 2018 I received an email from PayPal to say the funds had been withdrawn to my bank account (nationwide).

as you would do I checked my account and it was there.

it was time to then withdraw the funds and buy a newer car.........

I phoned the bank on the 25th of June 2018 to book in advance to go in and make the withdrawal, it was all fine

then all of a sudden the lady told me on the phone that my account was frozen as of today!

Baffled and unaware why I asked her for a reason as to why?

She then told me I would need to contact the “fraud department”.

I did this and spoke to an advisor and he was asking where the money came from etc blah blah blah.

I explained everything to him.

He asked for proof of the transaction.

I emailed him emails between myself and PayPal, transaction ID’s, the eBay ad and everything else I could possibly give him.

5 working days then had passed and I was told he couldn’t allow me to transact u till he had the “ok” from another department so that was fine.

To cut a very long story short, literally hours and hours of phone calls to the fraud department, nationwide complaints department and I also have a claim the FOS.

It has now been 65 days since the account was frozen,

I still get the same answer from the bank of I phone

“we have not yet made a decision and we will contact you when we do”

if you question who’s making the decision or why it’s taking so long you are met with

“nationwide are meeting the statutory and legal obligations and can’t allow for you to transact at this point”

The lady at the FOS has received the case file from the bank and she then asked me last week if I could send her all the emails from PayPal, transaction ID’s and listing etc which I then done, although I had already sent this to the bank weeks ago......which should have been on the case file?

I have done a LOT of research and from what I can see is the bank submit a SAR suspicious activity report the the NCA national crime agency.

They then have 7 working days to reply to the bank to give them authorisation to complete the transaction.

If they do not then you enter a monotorium period which then lasts for a 31 calendar days for the NCA to investigate.

This money is not fraudulent, the money is legitimate, I simply sold a car, received the money via PayPal and withdrew it to my bank.

What have I done wrong? I can not find any other story the same as mines or that has taken as long!

No one wants to tell me anything and no ones I’m any hurry!

The bank did not even notify me that they had stopped my mortgage payments and other DD’s.

What is going on? I feel as though I’m being investigated for legitimate money through the genuine sale of a car. It has left me without a car for the past 65 days.

I can’t afford to goto a lawyer hence why I went to the FOS.

But they are in no grey hurry.

The FOS keep telling me that thierselves and the bank are working closely and as quickly as possible to resolve it.

What I can’t get my head around is

1. Resolve what

2. What on earth can take this long?

I can’t show or prove to them anymore than I have about the sale, nothing going to change whether it be 65 days or 6500 days.

It’s still going to be the same sale, same transaction and same proof

Time to write to them formally and give them 7 days to solve the non existent problem.

After that I would go straight to mcol and start a case for your losses, ie. missed mortgage payments, travel expenses while without a car, etc.

They'll soon wake up.

You may find that if you do go MCOL - then the judge may side with Nationwide over you. This is due to Money Laundering laws. Sure - You know the full whereabouts of the money from the point of Paypal etc but they don't and to receive a large amount like that may trigger a flag for AMLL.

If you have all the proof then this is a no brainer. However send an email to NW CEO [email protected]

See if it triggers a response and if it doesnt or its insufficient - Then start a claim for money etc.

Although due to the amount you'd be claiming if you wanted the £18k from NW then you may be looking at a claim in the Fast Track

Fast Track is reserved for claims between £10,000-£25,000. The hearing can only last for 1 day, and usually, it takes up to a year to reach it.

But I do wonder if a judge could force a release of the money as part of the a decision if required proof was given?? (This might need a bit of investigating)

You wouldn't claim for the initial money..that is not in question...its the losses uncured so would be Small Claims Track.

Hello,

Thankyou for the replies. I had already emailed the CEO and received a failed message email so I done some digging and found another email which was CEO at nationwide.co.uk. I did receive a reply from that on stating.

Dear Mr …..

Thank you for your email. We are sorry to learn of your concerns, a response will be issued by an appropriate senior manager very shortly. In order that we may arrange this, would you please be so kind as to let me have the following information:

Full address and postcode (in order that we may record your concerns)

Preferred contact telephone number/s

Date of Birth

please remember that email is not 100% secure, so if you prefer you can telephone us on 0800 5453003, between the hours of 9.00am and 5.00pm Monday to Friday, to provide further contact details.

Kind regards

That was 2 days ago now.

The FOS emailed me today also,

I had also spoken with them on the phone 2 days ago.

She is telling me that she requested information from the bank (didn’t tell me what) and she needs that before she can make a decision.

However I explained to her yesterday that surely the bank are dragging this out for longer than needed etc and she agreed with me.

She also told me that she CAN go ahead and make a decision on the case without that information she has requested and in my favour but they don’t like to do that? Anyways she emailed me today to say this......

Dear Mr

I’m just sending an email to update you as promised during our call earlier this week.

I have taken the decision to escalate the requests to Nationwide to a manager here.

I’m hoping that we will have an answer from them early next week, and as soon as I have more information I’ll give you a call.

Kind regards

So I’m hoping now that it’s been escalated then maybe this is them now pushing the bank?

She has already said to me that her manager is now involved in this and they are very keen to have it resolved quickly.

Sorry for my ignorance but what is MCOL? I Thankyou all for your replies and it is greatly appreciated.

Stephen

Money Claim Online...its where you would issue a court claim.

https://www.moneyclaim.gov.uk/web/mcol/welcome

Thankyou for that. If I submitted this would it then take over any decision the FSO could make?

Its not advisable to start a claim until the Nationnwide/FOS have concluded....and hopefully to your satisfaction.

Does anyone know if from past experience etc or knowledge that if the case handler from the FOS has now escalated the claim to their manager does this mean the FOS is now in a position to really be wanting to be making a decision quickly or.......is this a long drawn process and could still take ages?

what do you mean by Manager?

there are adjudicators they initially make a decision and then theres the ombudsman themselves if you don't agree with the ADJ decision.

I received an email from the lady who’s dealing with my case.

I’ll copy and paste her email she sent me on Friday.

Dear Mr *****

I’m just sending an email to update you as promised during our call earlier this week.

I have taken the decision to escalate the requests to Nationwide to a manager here.

I’m hoping that we will have an answer from them early next week, and as soon as I have more information I’ll give you a call.

Kind regards

Meg Raymond | investigator | 020 3487 6372

Financial Ombudsman Service | Exchange Tower, London, E14 9SR

Anyone know what this means?

Going up the chain of cmd

What I’m failing to understand is that the case handler said to me that they are able to make a decision based on the information that’s already been given by the bank.

They requested more information from the bank weeks ago and the bank have failed to supply it.

The reason the ombudsman is there is to make sure that the bank are not taking longer than needed. This being said if the bank are not replying to the ombudsman within a timely manner or giving them what they need to make a decision then surely rather than “pass it up thto chain of command”

surely they must saying “ok we have given you 3 months to reply to us, you have failed to do that so we have no option but to go in the customers favour given the limited information you have already given”.

Not passing it up the chain of command to then be fobbed off for even longer, if the bank have not replied to the case handler then I’m doubting the bank is going to reply to a manager.........

I will explain more about the ombudsmen later... It'll mark for some interesting reading

So depending on where you lie in the complaints process in the FOS depends on how you will get on with your decision.

If you are with an adjudicator then when they make a decision it is not legally binding. The bank can ignore it but it is risky to do so.

The real clincher is when it gets handed up to an Ombudsman. When the Ombudsman rules, the consumer has the right to accept or reject but the Bank doesnt. Any decision made is is legally binding and has what would be considered the same power as a judge when it is finalised. It means you would not beable to take further action in a court unless;

- The Bank do not comply with the decision made by the Ombudsman after you have accepted.

Please remember that AMLL take precedence over anything to do with complaining. But there are times when a bank will get it wrong and quite often they do. You should be compensated accordingly for loss of access to the money and the account being frozen.

What i would say. Is that if this was your main account - and they froze the WHOLE thing and not just took away the money while they investigated then they should be slapped on the wrists for it.

What stage are you at with the Ombudsman? Nationwide will say they did nothing wrong and were obeying the law, but from what ive read - They should have handled the situation sooooooooooooooo much better.

If you have emailed the CEO like i may have mentioned before and it got given to an Exec Complaints Handler then make sure that both the FOS and Exec CH are talking to each other.

If it comes to it - You may be waiting longer if it goes to an Ombudsman. However if you do take legal action against Nationwide for whatever reason - this will derail your situation with the FOS.

The lesson here for AMLL is that for reasons beyond you or I - If under suspicion then under AMLL its very difficult to get information.

Dont let it eat you up. Just concentrate on getting your end result and do it the right way.

(Also if it comes to it - Im sure a few newspapers might be interested)

First of all Thankyou for taking the time to reply back to me. Iv not heard from FOS today so I decided to phone the bank out of the blue on the off chance. I was greeted with good news.

They decided YESTERDAY that they were releasing the funds and issued a cheque yesterday. However they have decided to close my account.

Am I able to claim compensation from them?

I mean that’s the last of my concerns but I’m ecstatic that they have finally released the funds.

What I’m confused about is why didn’t the bank phone me yesterday to tell me this and why issue a cheque? Why not give me the option to take the money or transfer it to another account?

Well done thread title updated.

Regards

Andy

First of all Thankyou for taking the time to reply back to me. Iv not heard from FOS today so I decided to phone the bank out of the blue on the off chance. I was greeted with good news.

 

They decided YESTERDAY that they were releasing the funds and issued a cheque yesterday. However they have decided to close my account. Am I able to claim compensation from them? I mean that’s the last of my concerns but I’m ecstatic that they have finally released the funds. What I’m confused about is why didn’t the bank phone me yesterday to tell me this and why issue a cheque? Why not give me the option to take the money or transfer it to another account?

Well done - But id read up about CIFAS if they are closing the account...! (They are probably closing the account on the basis that you the relationship has broken down which it had) However - Id read up on CIFAS just incase...

Get the ombudsman to confirm that you will NOT be added to any CIFAS database.

Given their treatment of you culminating in them unilaterally closing your account, it might be worth making a claim under BCOBS.

and ask about compo too

nothing to stop you going after them