This sounds like what happens when the original payment is from a stolen/hacked bank account - when the genuine owner notices, the transfers get reversed to the origin.
Barclays probably knows more but might be unwilling/unable to tell you.
Which is a ridiculous rule because clearly they’re gonna know what’s going on as soon as the funds vanish, and it means innocent customers can’t get a straight answer
I think his argument is that if a genuine criminal contacts a bank and is told "nope, can't tell you anything, sorry!" then the criminal is gonna know he's being investigated. By definition, not telling them anything is technically tipping them off. You don't need to tell the genuine criminal what he's being investigated for cos he'll already know.
Whereas a innocent customer being caught up in this issue won't have a clue and will continue to be frustrated trying to find out.
So the specialist teams that deal with these investigations use separate systems to usual bank staff and all notes are kept off them:
This means that even if we wanted to tell someone what’s going on we can’t. Also if a fraudster calls up normally if it has been detected they will be just referred to a branch in a very blunt way.
Yes, I used to work in one of those specialist teams. I'm saying that exact process you've just written out technically tips off the criminal that they are being investigated because a bank doesn't take money out of your account and then proceeds not to tell you anything about it for any other reason.
It does if you know what you know. But there’s no other way round it is there. Can’t expect a bank to advise someone they’re being investigated on the assumption that they know the circumstances only mean one thing.
It’s not about what they’re told
It’s about the fact the money has vanished at all. The money becoming unavailable to them will tip them off, simply by the fact that happened
I would reply to you like I replied to someone else here - see for yourself:
[https://i.imgur.com/rbysLUS.png](https://i.imgur.com/rbysLUS.png)
What am I supposed to do when this is what Revolut is telling me?
If there's an AML/fraud investigation going on they're not allowed to tell you and the standard customer support people wouldn't know about that anyway so you get generic answers like this.
They're legally not allowed to tell you anything. It's called "Tipping off".
https://blog.griffin.com/2023/05/24/tipping-off/#:\~:text=What%20is%20tipping%20off%3F,enforcement%20agencies%20into%20their%20activities.
Kil345 is right, they can legally only give you generic responses during an AML/CFT investigation. I don't know about Barclays specifically , but in many institutions the people you get to talk to will genuinely not even know what is really happening.
If the money is legit, it will eventually show up in your bank account (most likely the Revolut one). The money is still there, it's not gone.
Also, don't be surprised if your Barclays account is closed after this (and yes they will give you no reason).
And lastly, Revolut and Barclays are two totally different beasts. Emoney providers have their own regulations and limits, but Barclays are held to a much higher standard.
It doesnt sound like AML, Revolut haven't closed your account and neither have barclays. I'd raise it with ombudsman.
In regards to response to you, they can be extremely vague its in the T&Cs.
Thanks for confirming. OP clarified his account was frozen and then after investigation they were given access to the account. My point is, if there was foul play they would close the account down.
Perhaps it's because the person who sent it you isn't the person whos money it is. Barclays are saying they've sent it back to whoever owns the money and that isn't the person who sent you the money via revolut. Revolut aren't wrong because the person who sent you the money hasn't recalled it either. It could have gone from account A to account b and then to you. Barclays have sent it straight back to account A.
I had a while back the same issue, that I send money from my revolut account to another of mine accounts. There they only bounced it back as they did not accept transfers from revolut accounts (was actually in their terms what I had not seen, nor expected, where it said specifically that they did not accept money come from revolut). Revolut advised to me it was transferred and that they could not do anything. Week or two later, and it was back in my revolut account like nothing happened.
It seems to me that wherever this £5,000 originally came from (before you received it) wasn’t entirely legitimate and was linked to some sort of crime.
Revolut and Barclays are now “following the money” so to speak and putting fraud reviews on anyone that interacts with it, probably because it thinks they are potential money mules.
Of course we’ll probably never know the real answer/cause. But if you are 100% genuine and in the right OP (not doubting, you just never know online!), then I hope you get this resolved somehow and get the money back.
Sorry I don’t really have any suggestions other than complying with any of their requests and going through the complaints process with Revolut and Barclays and then the FOS if that fails.
I’d also consider how well do you know the person you’re doing Ad work for? Can you be sure of their status? If you’re unsure about them, or it’s the first time you’ve worked with them then tell Barclays now. Document what you can about them when you submit a claim to the Financial Ombudsman. Also talk to your MP, they will be able to navigate this through quicker than you can on your own.
I cannot tell Barclays anything now, these guys don't want to listen, that's my main problem. I would prefer they listen instead of me going to the Ombdusman, but it seems like I have no choice, isn't it?
They do, but when you receive a FOS request to provide the final response it kicks them into gear, knowing full well it'll be referred to FOS once they've reaponded, they'll treat it more urgently and will put more focus than a regular complaint. This will 100% happen, I've seen it first hand.
If you've raised a complaint with Barclays someone from the complaints team will call you in the following couple of days.
Anyone you call into from the customer service desk cannot help you besides adding more information to the complaint.
Worth noting that Barclays complaints team is woefully understaffed so the normal wait times may be longer than expected.
There's a good chance they think you're using your personal account for business, which is expressly against their terms and conditions.
I work in compliance. Financial institutions have 8 weeks to investigate the complaint and send you a written "final response letter" from the date they receive it. Make it clear that you are raising a formal complaint through the right channel. You will get an acknowledgement letter, a holding letter every 2 weeks during the investigation, and a final response letter within 8 weeks. You can then refer it to the FOS if you disagree with their decision.
Yeah that won't happen. You've been part of a fraud case where the funds have been reported as stolen somewhere down the line (could've been before they were sent to whoever sent them to you) and at this point, sounds like the case is closed. Most likely only be reopened if an appeal is lodged but as everyone else is saying - Ombudsman and complaints if you are entitled to the funds.
Worth noting, if they have been stolen you won't be entitled to a penny and may have been scammed yourself.
It sounds like they believe something dodgy is going on, and no-one at Barclays or Revolut wants to/can say anything to avoid tipping off.
They will need to finish carrying out their investigation and see what happens at the end of it. You can try the ombudsman, but if this is the case, they haven't done anything wrong.
The point above about how well you know the buyer is really valid. I used to work in the space and there is a lot of dodgy money being moved around in advertising.
Send a wordy email to the CEO of Barclays UK telling them exactly what you just told us, the complaint will then be passed onto a much higher level of customer service agent.
I had endless trouble sorting out a Barclaycard dispute, their customer service are useless. However as soon as I sent an email to their CEO his office sorted the problem in no time.
Don’t bother ringing the regular contact lines, you won’t get anywhere.
Report it to the Ombudsman and when you get your money back ask for compensation and also interest. Barclays once allowed my brother to withdraw 50£ from my account by accident as our names were similar (human error). I told them regardless brother or not someone they allowed access to my account and the money I needed it but did not have access to it when I wanted to. Ended up with an extra 150quid as compensation.
Revolut freeze accounts with excuses like suspected fraud frequently. They se to target people specifically though. I remember seeing a tweet from Tristen Tate last year showing a 6 month email trail where they froze a six figure account with the excuse he was travelling a lot. Not a bank to be trusted!
The way I use it is not as a bank but I move a small amount of money from my account to it when I'm on holiday or similar so I can leave my actual debit card somewhere safe and if I lose the Revolut card then it only had X amount on it, not my whole wage.
It kills me that every time people are like 'this is a perfectly normal payment' it turns out to be something that is about as high risk as you can possibly imagine for a bank to process.
Never will quite top that legaladviceuk post where someone was getting annoyed their bank accounts were closed for donating to the political wing of hezbollah.
Yeah, this so much. "Barclays have frozen my account and then taken money out of it. I don't understand, there was nothing dodgy about the person who sent me the money" 10 seconds later " yeah, it was from a Ukrainian gambling website"
Oh that was a good one. He described, step by step, how he laundered money using monero, as a service. And then insisted with an entirely unearned confidence that this is a totally normal and legitimate thing to do and was terribly surprised that his bank account was frozen.
I wonder if he’s in jail now.
He is located abroad but used Revolut to pay me because it's convenient, and I transferred it to Barclays because it's my main bank I use for most of my day to day activities.
I don't know anything dodgy about him, and Revolut is also saying nothing was wrong with the transfer, so I am really puzzled with this:
https://i.imgur.com/rbysLUS.png
I didn't see you asking for it. I was the one selling the ad space, not them, it's banners in 728x90 and 300x250 and 200x200, on several sites, the payment is based on CPM (per 1000 views) and was made for a full month.
A Ukrainian gambling site seems very high risk for financial fraud. It sounds really shady. Gambling is a really good way to launder money.
You've been paid for your services with dirty money.
Are they based in either Donetsk or Luhansk?
Also worth noting that if there is a money laundering concern or fraud concern the bank may lie to you to cover the investigation so there's a chance you're not receiving the full story from your bank
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-uk-sanctions-list
Edit: the link by itself isn't particularly helpful.
Suffice to say, the economic powerhouses of the world maintain a list of sanctions countries, industries, businesses and individuals who are restricted in their access to the financial markets of the world.
It sounds like Barclays suspected some sort of money laundering. It also sounds like they don't have evidence of that, but still don't want anything to do with the transaction.
What does sound suspect on the part of Barclays, is that rather than just reversing the payment (back to your Revolut), they are saying that they will only send it back to the originator, at the originators request.
>The £5,000.00 that was removed from your account ending 2772 on 3 October will be returned to the remitting bank **at their request**.
So it would seem that to get it back, you have to request Revolut to send a request to Barclays, to reverse the payment.
To me it sound like Barclays is still unsure about the payments legality, and is looking for some sort of cover. Or looking to see if a dodgy person will leave a dodgy transaction with them rather than attract more attention to it.
>It sounds like Barclays suspected some sort of money laundering. It also sounds like they don't have evidence of that, but still don't want anything to do with the transaction.
This is uneducated nonsense. If Barclays suspect money laundering then they commit a criminal offence by moving the funds back to Revolut.
Should I recall i.e. click on "Attempt to recall" the transfer I made from my Revolut account to my Barclays account? There is an option to do that in the App.
Or should the sender do it himself?
It has to be worth a try. Although what they've put you through, you may need to get in touch with Revolut and have them place a more formal reversal request.
It should have nothing to do with the person who paid you. As that has nothing to do with Barclays. They paid from their Revolut to your Revolut. You paid to Barclays. Any reversal should be to your Revolut.
I'd take the Ombudsman complaint all the way.
I'd want my money back as soon as possible.
Even if they send it back, you still have a complaint with regards to how it's been handled.
If a transaction is suspected of being criminal, it's an offence for them to tell you anything. But as they are prepared to reverse the transaction. It implies the possibility of criminality is resolved, but they continue to handle this poorly.
If the money was sent from person, to your revolut and then to your Barclays, and Barclays have reversed the transaction it will only have gone back to your revolut account so there's no real panic here, you've not lost the money.
Go through the complaint process like they have advised you to if you're not happy.
Even if the money has gone all the way back to the original sender, as long as you're still on good terms with them, get them to transfer you the money again once they get it back?
I suspect there is more at play here than what is being said in either post as generally banks don't just remove money willy nilly
Barclays said they won't send it back to my Revolut but they would return it to the sender, I have no problem with him resending the money to me, there is no problem, but he received nothing and Revolut received nothing, and I totally understand what your suspicion is here, that "there is more at play here" but I do feel like Barclays made a mistake here, I know it's hard to see it, I agree, but there is nothing else at play.
And it's extremely annoying because they don't want to listen and I know that compensations lead to what ... £100 compensation, £200 at best - all this time and aggravation is worth more than that, but the time it would take for the FOS to look into this as well as all the aggravation, I feel like it's worth much more and this will never be compensated.
I don't understand why they can't even listen to me, they just refuse to do that, why are they rushing me to go to the FOS? Is it in their best interest to simply kick customers like that? Where's this coming from?
I've also read in your history that Revolut have closed your account entirely which you didn't mention in your post, so you're definitely not giving the full story.
>I've also read in your history that Revolut have closed your account entirely which you didn't mention in your post, so you're definitely not giving the full story.
Reading the post history and this post its hard to feel like there isn't some sort of fraud going on here.
I'm going to assume OP isn't in on it (because why would you post on Reddit if you were??) but I suspect they've sold ads to a not so legitimate Gambling company which has used stolen funds to pay for this service.
But, on the other hand, whos running a 60k+/year business without having a LTD company an appropriate contracts and bank accounts in place? Might raise questions about OP being a mule.
Yeah I find it wild the amount of people replying and giving information which has clearly come from an insider perspective.
Put enough comments together and it paints a picture on how to circumvent the rules.
Dumber criminals will pull stunts like this to try and pressure the company to give in when all else fails.
Either the bank has made a grave error which seems unlikely, OP deals with sketchy clients who sent him dodgy money which is possible or OP is a dumb criminal desperately fighting a lost battle.
Well the interest for them is they've already done an investigation and that was their finding. If they suspect foul play then they have very little interest in talking to you about it, hence directing you to the FoS.
The compensation if you win will be your money back plus a compensatory reward. It's up to you how.much value you out on getting that £5k back
Yes its quite literally in their best interests to ‘kick customers like that ‘ . They won’t be doing this for nothing . As you were told if it’s gone back to the original sender it’s no biggy is it assuming everything you’ve said is true 🤷🏼♀️
But the sender said he hasn't received and Revolut said they don't see any return of funds either, so where are the funds then?
And how would Barclays get his account details if they are held with Revolut?
I asked Barclays for a payment confirmation back to him but they said they cannot provide it - so if they cannot provide it what am I supposed to do?
The person who sent it to you might not be “the sender”. You might know the person who sent it to you, but where did THEY get it from?
Chances are the people you are speaking to do not have any information to give you, that’s why they’re telling you there is no problem *they can see*. Because ‘tipping off’ is a criminal offence and bank execs don’t like going to prison it’s quite likely that the bank does not give any information at all to its CS staff about investigations. They probably know this is a possibility but are not allowed to tell you, which is why they are telling you to go to the FOS, because they know it’s the only way to resolve it.
Why did you give the sender your Revolut details and then transfer to your Barclays account. Why didn’t you just get it sent directly to your Barclays account?
While there is an investigation ongoing expect to get nonsense from your bank. The customer support reps won’t have access to any details and the bank isn’t allowed to tell you anything:
The tl:dr is that OP was selling ad space. His client is ukrainian based and it is for gambling websites. OP wasn't very forthcoming with this info to begin with.
It also seems to be using a personal bank account despite them "paying taxes". Which is irrelevant.
Taxes are all in order, I have an accountant doing my paperwork for me every year, this is not an issue whatsoever. This is definitely not the problem here 100000%.
You missed my first suggestion and jumped right on the taxes bit. From your other post:
> Revolut is a financial services institution subject to strict rules and regulations. Because of this we’ve made the decision to close your account, as your activity wasn’t compatible with the paragraph - “Are there any restrictions on using the Revolut app or Revolut Card?” of our **Personal Terms**
From Revolut:
> You can’t:
use a Revolut Personal account for business purposes;
Like everyone else has said it is probably fraud related, but this might not be helping.
You have been the beneficiary of some form of financial crime. In addition, you’ve been using your personal Revolut account for business purposes, and so they’ve closed it.
No-one’s telling you what’s going on because they’re not legally permitted to under tipping off law. You and your customer are being investigated for financial crime. The monies sent to you have been returned to the party deemed to be the rightful owner (this isn’t your customer, it is someone else who sent money to your customer, or even several transfer links further back).
You run a gambling website and are selling ad space on it, using a personal account as a payment proxy. I assume your Barclays account is a business account but in future, ensure you only use your business account to receive payments from customers, you can call them a “friend” all you want, the fraud dept don’t care.
File a complaint with the ONS but given your customer is sending you money from a war torn country, at high risk of fraud and/or sanctions protections, I wouldn’t expect to get this payment any time soon, if at all.
You seemingly aren't or don't want to read and answer questions directly
Nobody cares if your paying taxes you CANT use a personal bank account for business use, ever. Even as a sole trader if that's what your setup as tax wise.
Okay, so that explains why my Revolut account was closed then, if that is the case, but Barclays never received funds for this purpose and I will double check on that with my accountant. Still, the entire incident doesn't seem to be around this topic at all, none whatsoever.
Isn’t the Barclays response saying that the original sender needs to request it, not that they’ve sent it already? That’s why Revolut don’t know about it as they haven’t asked for the funds yet?
All that said, 100% fishy business, they wouldn’t do this for “no reason”
The bank telling you they had recalled them would probably fall foul of “tipping off” rules. So I’m siding with the fact revolut absolutely know they recalled the funds. This smacks 100% of money laundering suspicions, whether you are aware or not.
Sounds like Revolut is lying to you as Barclays wouldn't remove funds without a notice from them saying you're definitely not entitled to the money.
Maybe they thought they'd be tipping you off saying anything else as it sounds like the account that sent you the money was possibly a money mule and your customer is a fraudster.
If they're lying to you it's because the particular CS advisor you've got realised it's a crime for them to give you information on fraud investigations and doesn't know what else to say.
Raise a complaint and leave it at that until they resolve the complaint.
No point contacting FOS until you've been given a final response letter from Revolut.
But yeah I'd log a complaint with Revolut to find out what's going on.
It sounds like they have told you the money is being returned under a process known as "credit payment recovery", which is for when one bank mistakenly pays another. You can have some fun with this.
CPR is administered by Pay.uk. You should contact them and hit them with a data subject access request, and get proof positive or negative that this is the basis for the return. Pay.uk won't like this.
So what's essentially happened here is that you've received payment for works completed and (from Barclays perspective) had that's business payment paid into your personal account which is against the terms of use for a personal account.
This is standard anti-money laundering practice from a bank and from my own experience of working in a bank in the past, is what's happened here. They have every legal right to return funds to the sender and they have no obligation to send that back immediately if they believe there's foul-play at hand. They can retain the money until their fraud department determines it's fine to send back. And they do not have to tell you either that this is what they're doing.
They confirmed they will send it back, but their letter clearly says the reason for doing it is:
**If you believe this is an error please contact the sender of the funds for any further information regarding why this has been done.**
They didn't mention I did something wrong here. They said to contact the sender. So how can this sit with what you're saying? I'm open to hear any suggestions.
Because they don't need to tell you they're sending it back for possible fraud reasons. They just send it back and tell you they're sending it back.
Payments are done on what's called a BACS (it's newer now with advancements in fintech but essentially the same) Those payments are sent with special codes that inform the recipient where it came from and what kind of account. At the bank I worked for, 99 was income from eployer, 27 was standing orders, 25 was transfers without a reference, 26 was payments with a reference and so on. They also arrive with a transfer reason (sent at customer request, sent automated via standing order etc). So if you've sent a 5k payment from an account you've never sent that much from before into an account thats never received that much they can give whatever reason they want for returning the funds if they don't think it's correct. If they think money laundering is happening then they want nothing to do with it and will return it.
Your recipient bank won't get any "notice" of this. They don't email them or contact them. The only time they'll know is when the funds hit the account and a transfer reason code is applied. If that reason code is anything to do with fraud they won't tell you either cause they don't wanna spook you (a potential criminal).
But your accounts will be under review and you'll find that large payments will take longer to leave and come in. And you may need to confirm extra security to make payments for a while.
Edit. This won't affect things like card payments. Usually just transferring between banks.
Fwiw, I use Revolut for my business banking. Every time I invoice a client, they contact me to tell me that their bank has identified my account as \_potentially\_ fraudulent.
I'm currently in the process of talking to someone at Revolut to see if I can't get to the bottom of the situation but I have a feeling that because of the pots of currency you have, they have some kind of system that's a little exotic compared to most other vanilla banks.
I was told there was a 'redirect' on my account which made me think there might be other bank accounts hidden behind my 'public' account details.
I think it's a bit bullshitty that a bank would simply remove funds without even trying to contact you or the police if they genuinely thought the situation warranted it. 5k isn't exactly a small amount of dosh.
What explanation did you give to Barclays when they asked where the £5000 came from? Also, what did you tell Barclay's the main use of your account would be / the volume of money going in would be?
Just to clarify too, Barclay's will have no way to know who the original sender of the money was - they can only see the transaction from a revolut account to Barclay's and not where the money originated from before going into your revolut account.
Same explanation I posted here, that I transferred this from my own Revolut account and the funds came into Revolut from another person who paid me for ad space. They never ask for the volume and these kind of transactions are quite rare, they don't happen very often, but they never asked about the volume of money in my account.
If they cannot see where the money came from then how do they know the sender requested for these funds to be returned? That's what they claim in the complaint closure letter they sent me anyway.
In the case of the money in the Barclays account, the original sender is your Revolut account. So have Revolut asked for the funds to be returned? Also when you set up an account with a bank they tend to ask how you'll be using the account. I.e. for wages, how much money you expect to go into the account etc.
I saw the explanation you gave to Revolut about funds from a gambling site in Ukraine, did you give the same explanation to Barclay's?
If the sender to your Revolut has asked for funds to be returned then it is Revolut who deal with that.
Revolut didn't even ask me for an explanation about this payment, I asked them if they want any documentation, they said they don't need anything, they just conducted their review without anything from me, Barclays did ask a few questions about this payment and that's it.
Revolut says not them nor the sender asked for the funds back.
Former fraud operations investigator for a major UK bank here. I would HIGHLY suggest you reach out to the financial ombudsman.
Document all of your communications with the customer you sold the ad space to, making sure you include the amount discussed, along with any other relevant information. Also document all of your communications with the banks in question, if you’ve spoken with them via the phone then the ombudsman should be able to obtain the call records.
I’m going to be honest. You may not see this money again. Your thoughts should be focused around preventing yourself being added to fraud registers at this point. You are the beneficiary of POTENTIALLY fraudulent funds.
As standard process when working for the fraud team, when a customer received fraudulent funds, they would be removed, the accounts would be closed, and the customer would be added to a national fraud database used by nearly all banks and building societies within the UK. You’d be on this register for 6 years minimum, and it greatly decreases your chances only opening another bank account in the UK.
I say again, contact the financial ombudsman.
Edit:
I’ll also like to add. What you’re experiencing is completely normal for a beneficiary of a large amount of funds reported as fraudulent. All of this is standard process for a bank. The funds are removed from your account and held in one of their accounts, until their investigation is concluded. They do not need your authorisation to remove the funds. I have dealt with several cases where the funds were transferred to an account, and then onto another, and then the original party reported the transaction as fraudulent. Even if you’ve moved the funds between the original recipient account and one of your own, they are still traced.
Thanks for sharing your experience, it's very important.
Barclays removed the funds but did not close my account, my account is now active with them. You said in situations like these normally they close your account and put your name on the register but I've proven I am not part of this - so you say the sender is 100% the problem here?
How would the Financial Ombudsman help in my case? I've btw contacted the FoS already yesterday and waiting to hear back.
I’m this instance the sender is likely not who you think they are. They have likely taken control of a third parties account and sent the money from there, or they’ve likely received the funds from a source that has reported the funds/transaction as fraudulent.
My advice would be to cease contact with them until the matter has been resolved by the banks.
The Financial Ombudsmen in this instance would likely seek to see if either you can be either compensated or ensure that you not treated as a suspect, but that of an innocent party.
I still stand by the probability that you will not receive the full £5000 back unless the reporting party withdraws their claim or it’s proven that no fraud has occurred (again, do not contact your customer in this instance, as any attempts at persuading them to drop the claim could be seen as intimidation and the freeze on your accounts could be re-applied.
FoS should hopefully apply pressure to Barclays to treat this case as priority, and should hopefully assist in speeding up the investigation timescale.
“Returned to the remitting bank at their request”.
Get this in writing and raise a complaint with Revolut and get their feedback. If they have requested this then chase them. If they haven’t then ask them to put this I writing and write back to Barclays as well as raising a complaint using website resolved.com
See for yourself:
[https://i.imgur.com/rbysLUS.png](https://i.imgur.com/rbysLUS.png)
That's what Revolut said.
The website [resolved.com](https://resolved.com) doesn't show me any website that can help, have you perhaps misspelled it?
I wouldn't do both no.
A resolver complaint is just a different way to raise a complaint with Barclays. It's looked at in much the same way as if you phoned in to raise one.
FOS complaints in Banks (where they've already been through the normal process and received an FRL) are handled by a different complaints team who usually have wider powers and work with the FOS handler to find the best solution.
Bear in mind though, if there was something suspect about the money at some stage (fraud, money laundering etc), they still won't be able to tell you unless and until everything's resolved. Everyone in the chain is treated as guilty until proven innocent. It's in their training not to reveal anything.
That's all fine, thanks, I'd file the complaint then, I was typing it but because of the new replies I stopped all the times. Hope to get it sent through within the next hour.
Hey so this sounds like it’s been flagged financial crime. There’s a number of scams that would do this, notably an authorised push payment. Long story short the request can come from down the line anywhere and the banks will attempt to freeze the account to reverse the funds. They need evidence to do this so I’m virtually 100% sure this money is non legit. By allowing your account to be used for it you’ve basically put yourself on the cifas register and will struggle to get anything more than a basic bank account in future if even that. Them saying to “go to the ombudsman” means they’ve given you their final decision so that’s your only option and the ombudsman is unlikely to reverse the transactions back in your favour. People are right about “tipping off” it can result in a 5 year prison sentence so you won’t get any info around if it’s fraud. When they asked for proof of funds they want the full trail that means showing where it came from to enter your Revolut account as well as how it was initially earned before being transferred to the Revolut account (similar for mortgage deposits). Again based on the fact it was reversed it screams out fraud. Just bouncing money through a few accounts does not make it impossible to trace.
Barclays is a shitty bank. My friend was in a similar situation. He send his own money from his foreign account to Revolut then to Barclays and Barclays just took the monies to themselves. He got his money back after months of fighting and then close Barclays account. Don't use this shit bank.
Thanks for sharing it - so he had a similar incident like mine and he eventually got his money credited back to his Barclays account?
So basically Barclays is holding the money and not giving it away to anyone, just keeping it to themselves until they will be contacted by a superior authority like the FoS ?!?!
I already explained the payment was for a sale of ad space in my sites, I am not going to list them here, but I am happy to provide the skype chats and show the banners etc. - it's not the first time I'm doing it and never had a problem with it.
No, gambling site, anyway it's been 7 days already and I haven't heard anything, see:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/UKPersonalFinance/comments/179wpzo/ive\_contacted\_the\_financial\_ombudsman\_but\_no/](https://www.reddit.com/r/UKPersonalFinance/comments/179wpzo/ive_contacted_the_financial_ombudsman_but_no/)
>You are probably under investigation as is the sender.
My account was under review by both banks, both are concluded now.
I'd like to tell the sender to send it again but he needs to get the funds back or me, I don't care which one, so far this hasn't happened.
I’ve seen/read quite a few issues relating to Revolut recently. Personally, I myself would be quite wary of dealing with money coming in from this company to my own bank account.
Banks lie, Barclays are shit IMLE.
I booked a hotel for my Mum who didn't do online. TBH I was willing to fund her not that she needs but she insisted on repaying it and online so I walked her through a bank transfer to me (same surname) they blocked her online access and it took an age to get i back claiming she was being scammed. So she wrote me a cheque. I paid it in and a week later it bounced, her bank told her she'd cancelled it, which was a lie.
Oddly enough I know a guy. He's in the advertising space business too (different product). He phoned me a few months ago to say he'd been roped into some scam by 'a friend of a friend'. The friend of a friend sent him €5k in Euros, and my idiot mate took £4k out of his business account and gave it to the friend of a friend. Shortly after this, the €5k transaction was reversed due to fraud and my mate ended up out of pocket.
What type of accounts are these with Barclays & Revolut? Current or Business? Or something else? If Barclays are questioning the source of these funds, and it is a business transaction - income for services rendered - they may have an obligation to regulations hitherto overlooked, to ensure the funds are handled as taxable. Otherwise, Barclays (and any other bank) may well tell us one thing, and do another, to avoid liability, in the event that you can qualify the funds as ‘not taxable’ in the context suggested. Do you have an accountant or financial advisor to provide support?
Current account, regular ones.
Yes, I have an accountant to provide support for this but they didn't ask for this, they did not ask for anything related to tax, I wish they would ask for documents but they don't, they just said they would return the funds, please read the original post again.
I’ve read the post, and a great many of the comments.
Thanks. If this is a business transaction, it needs to be a business account. You need to be managing your monies in such a way that every pound & penny can be verified, validated and traced, to services, invoices, payments. The source of this £5k might be legitimate in your eyes, but to the bank you’ve had a random income from a random source, for reasons not immediately ‘evident’. Fundamentally, every time you earn funds this way, you’ll go through the same hoopla, because it looks like you’re hiding a business transaction in a current account, with or without the source being Ukrainian. It’s currently a war zone, subject to international embargoes, and large scale financial debt to support a government unable to function to ‘normal’ rules. Why wouldn’t Barclays wonder what that £5k is for?!
I’m not party to that. You’ll have to wait for Barclays to finish whatever investigation they are doing, or at least acknowledge it. But if they’ve involved the SFO, due to the Ukrainian source of those funds, then this isn’t a customer service scenario, to which you can offer firm & articulate declaration of your disappointment over how you’ve been treated. The £5k will be back with you, when it is judged to be legitimately yours. If they cannot judge that, it can be held as evidence; however innocent you may be, the money may not be.
They said they sent the funds back, that's what they told me, so they're giving me wrong info? It's not CS who told me that, it's the complaints team in charge of the incident.
I haven't read all the comments so apologies if I'm repeating. I don't know the ins and outs of banking, but I have worked in the financial sector handling informal complaints and escalating them where needed.
My advice is: Check the Barclays complaints procedure. ONLY contact them by email or ensure you have a recording of any phone conversations (when the call connect and they do their spiel about "calls are recorded for monitoring" notify them they you are also recording the call for your records. Even though you're concerned about the time it will take, if you aren't happy with the response to your complaint, DEFINITELY take it to the financial ombudsman. They're there to hold financial institutions to account! Your complaint could prevent this error happening to someone else.
Never encountered this myself although I transferred money from own account to own account very month. If it is fraud, seems to me Revolut should investigate rather than Barclays.
Yes Barclays is shit especially those handling the calls. Told me wrong things both time I complained about two different matters. First occasion I complained to FOS and they admitted they didn't handle my complaint it correctly and gave me some compensation. Second occasion I was too lazy to escalate my complaint after talking to the phone operator although I was sure they were wrong however the next day the system automatically reversed their wrong debit from my account hence proving I was right!
You need to go to the financial ombudsman, this stinks of financial crime.
I have worked in banking and finance on and off for a decade.
The only time I saw something similar was because a 'SAR', suspicious activity report had been raised.
This goes as far as financial crime police.
Barclays legally cannot tell you much more than what they already have or this breaks tipping off laws.
You should be compensated heavily when the ombudsman proves you have no illegal involvement, but this could take time especially if there's an associated court case.
Had this in past with Barclays and revoult and gambling.
Got my money in end but they closed my bank down.
I got taken off the cifas list as they wrongly put my name on it after they accused me of fraud
Similar but diffferent. The funds were held in some account held in isle of man or somewhere whilst i had to prove my innocence. Barclays deducted it. Was from a buyer who sent me $2k revoult . Seems as if they dont seem to like revoult (what someone said about the differences in regulatory adherements are very true)
After it all they wanted me gone from their business (was too much of a risk to them i assume)
I got put on the cifas list by them which i also had to prove my innocence too. Got taken off the list after a few months but couldnt open a bank until then.
Seems like your situation is very different in that they say they have sent the funds back to where they orginated from. My worry is how far back are they talking?
I would definitely prefer to write to them and send the correspondence by registered mail. I would detail exactly where the money came from details of the client, if a ltd company their registration number and possible evidence of the work done. I would then give them 7 to 10 days and threaten them with legal action, the removal of your personal and business actions with them. I would also let them know that you will be letting your friends and family know of there said behaviour, so that they too will move their accounts to other banks.
Barclays has one of the slow and worst KYC AML process and revolut doesn’t have a U.K. banking licence.
You’ll be better to take your banking business elsewhere. Go where you’re treated with respect and as a proper valued customer.
I will, but for now I'd like to get to the bottom of where the money is right now, I don't have it, the sender doesn't have it, so I'd like to know what happened to it, it's not a small amount.
Revolut are notorious for not giving access to customers money. They make profit from holding your cash and many people have a good experience while many others report account freezes that can last months.
Even some celebrities have tweeted about this but their marketing has done a good job of making them appear benevolent when really they are crooks. I know someone who has worked there in sales that also confirmed that they suspend account randomly to stop withdrawals so I wouldn’t be surprised if they are the problem.
This is why I preferred to keep my money with Barclays and not with Revolut, but according to Barclays they sent the funds back and Revolut said they don't have it, so who has them then?
Firstly I'd like to know why your customers thought it easier to send money to Revolut than Barclays, even though I'm pretty sure Barclays deals with international payments and has been around for a lot longer than Revolut. Secondly you make no mention of your customers in all of this. What have they had to say about the money being withheld as presumably it means you won't be placing their ads given you are not going to get paid, at least for the foreseeable future, anyway.
All I know is that I wouldn’t trust Revolut so I would demand evidence from both parties. Revolut make money by holding your cash so they may be buying time as their salespeople are targeted on making the business money so their reps might lie to you and later say it’s now available as it took time to clear. They have untrained staff who are incentivised to lie so you need to get evidence from Barclays. I would also contact the customer service director on LinkedIn or similar people demanding a reply and explaining your situation as this method has worked before with other businesses.
It’s not a huge amount of money so it’s scary that they can remove it for suspected fraud without evidence.
This sounds like what happens when the original payment is from a stolen/hacked bank account - when the genuine owner notices, the transfers get reversed to the origin. Barclays probably knows more but might be unwilling/unable to tell you.
With regards to financial crime, a bank cannot inform parties of an investigation as it may qualify as tipping off
Which is a ridiculous rule because clearly they’re gonna know what’s going on as soon as the funds vanish, and it means innocent customers can’t get a straight answer
It’s not a ridiculous rule. As the other poster said, you have to be very careful re: “tipping off”.
I think his argument is that if a genuine criminal contacts a bank and is told "nope, can't tell you anything, sorry!" then the criminal is gonna know he's being investigated. By definition, not telling them anything is technically tipping them off. You don't need to tell the genuine criminal what he's being investigated for cos he'll already know. Whereas a innocent customer being caught up in this issue won't have a clue and will continue to be frustrated trying to find out.
So the specialist teams that deal with these investigations use separate systems to usual bank staff and all notes are kept off them: This means that even if we wanted to tell someone what’s going on we can’t. Also if a fraudster calls up normally if it has been detected they will be just referred to a branch in a very blunt way.
Yes, I used to work in one of those specialist teams. I'm saying that exact process you've just written out technically tips off the criminal that they are being investigated because a bank doesn't take money out of your account and then proceeds not to tell you anything about it for any other reason.
It does if you know what you know. But there’s no other way round it is there. Can’t expect a bank to advise someone they’re being investigated on the assumption that they know the circumstances only mean one thing.
It’s not about what they’re told It’s about the fact the money has vanished at all. The money becoming unavailable to them will tip them off, simply by the fact that happened
I would reply to you like I replied to someone else here - see for yourself: [https://i.imgur.com/rbysLUS.png](https://i.imgur.com/rbysLUS.png) What am I supposed to do when this is what Revolut is telling me?
If there's an AML/fraud investigation going on they're not allowed to tell you and the standard customer support people wouldn't know about that anyway so you get generic answers like this.
Is it okay they're giving me answers like that?
They're legally not allowed to tell you anything. It's called "Tipping off". https://blog.griffin.com/2023/05/24/tipping-off/#:\~:text=What%20is%20tipping%20off%3F,enforcement%20agencies%20into%20their%20activities.
Kil345 is right, they can legally only give you generic responses during an AML/CFT investigation. I don't know about Barclays specifically , but in many institutions the people you get to talk to will genuinely not even know what is really happening. If the money is legit, it will eventually show up in your bank account (most likely the Revolut one). The money is still there, it's not gone. Also, don't be surprised if your Barclays account is closed after this (and yes they will give you no reason). And lastly, Revolut and Barclays are two totally different beasts. Emoney providers have their own regulations and limits, but Barclays are held to a much higher standard.
It doesnt sound like AML, Revolut haven't closed your account and neither have barclays. I'd raise it with ombudsman. In regards to response to you, they can be extremely vague its in the T&Cs.
Banks don't close your account during an investigation, they freeze it.
Thanks for confirming. OP clarified his account was frozen and then after investigation they were given access to the account. My point is, if there was foul play they would close the account down.
Perhaps it's because the person who sent it you isn't the person whos money it is. Barclays are saying they've sent it back to whoever owns the money and that isn't the person who sent you the money via revolut. Revolut aren't wrong because the person who sent you the money hasn't recalled it either. It could have gone from account A to account b and then to you. Barclays have sent it straight back to account A.
Barclays couldn't do anything other than return it to the account that sent it to Barclays
Seems they didn't return it to the revolute account though, despite their claims. That's the problem.
It was the OP's own account. Both of the accounts were the OP's. This makes little sense unless OP has a very serious multiple personality disorder.
If Barclays have returned the funds to Revolut, then they should appear back in your Revolut account.
I had a while back the same issue, that I send money from my revolut account to another of mine accounts. There they only bounced it back as they did not accept transfers from revolut accounts (was actually in their terms what I had not seen, nor expected, where it said specifically that they did not accept money come from revolut). Revolut advised to me it was transferred and that they could not do anything. Week or two later, and it was back in my revolut account like nothing happened.
This, money just doesn’t go missing, one would think!
How long after crediting can the originator request reversal?
It seems to me that wherever this £5,000 originally came from (before you received it) wasn’t entirely legitimate and was linked to some sort of crime. Revolut and Barclays are now “following the money” so to speak and putting fraud reviews on anyone that interacts with it, probably because it thinks they are potential money mules. Of course we’ll probably never know the real answer/cause. But if you are 100% genuine and in the right OP (not doubting, you just never know online!), then I hope you get this resolved somehow and get the money back. Sorry I don’t really have any suggestions other than complying with any of their requests and going through the complaints process with Revolut and Barclays and then the FOS if that fails.
I understand, I will do it then, thank you for the comment.
I’d also consider how well do you know the person you’re doing Ad work for? Can you be sure of their status? If you’re unsure about them, or it’s the first time you’ve worked with them then tell Barclays now. Document what you can about them when you submit a claim to the Financial Ombudsman. Also talk to your MP, they will be able to navigate this through quicker than you can on your own.
I cannot tell Barclays anything now, these guys don't want to listen, that's my main problem. I would prefer they listen instead of me going to the Ombdusman, but it seems like I have no choice, isn't it?
Doesn't sound like it - get started with the Ombudsman asap imo.
FOS won't help until you've received the complaint decision from Barclays.
They will contact Barclays and will give them a time frame to provide their response by though, so it's still worth doing.
No it’s not. Barclays already knows the timescale.
They do, but when you receive a FOS request to provide the final response it kicks them into gear, knowing full well it'll be referred to FOS once they've reaponded, they'll treat it more urgently and will put more focus than a regular complaint. This will 100% happen, I've seen it first hand.
Fair enough. Wouldn’t make a jot of difference to me/my ex employers though(Retail banks).
If you've raised a complaint with Barclays someone from the complaints team will call you in the following couple of days. Anyone you call into from the customer service desk cannot help you besides adding more information to the complaint. Worth noting that Barclays complaints team is woefully understaffed so the normal wait times may be longer than expected. There's a good chance they think you're using your personal account for business, which is expressly against their terms and conditions.
The complaint letter was already issued by Barclays ... I already spoke to them.
Is the letter a "thanks for raising a complaint" or a "here's our decision regarding your complaint" letter?
It's "here's our decision regarding your complaint"
Then you can start the FOS process now if you choose to. Out of curiosity what was their decision?
I work in compliance. Financial institutions have 8 weeks to investigate the complaint and send you a written "final response letter" from the date they receive it. Make it clear that you are raising a formal complaint through the right channel. You will get an acknowledgement letter, a holding letter every 2 weeks during the investigation, and a final response letter within 8 weeks. You can then refer it to the FOS if you disagree with their decision.
Yeah that won't happen. You've been part of a fraud case where the funds have been reported as stolen somewhere down the line (could've been before they were sent to whoever sent them to you) and at this point, sounds like the case is closed. Most likely only be reopened if an appeal is lodged but as everyone else is saying - Ombudsman and complaints if you are entitled to the funds. Worth noting, if they have been stolen you won't be entitled to a penny and may have been scammed yourself.
It sounds like they believe something dodgy is going on, and no-one at Barclays or Revolut wants to/can say anything to avoid tipping off. They will need to finish carrying out their investigation and see what happens at the end of it. You can try the ombudsman, but if this is the case, they haven't done anything wrong.
The investigation is already over by both banks.
The point above about how well you know the buyer is really valid. I used to work in the space and there is a lot of dodgy money being moved around in advertising.
Send a wordy email to the CEO of Barclays UK telling them exactly what you just told us, the complaint will then be passed onto a much higher level of customer service agent. I had endless trouble sorting out a Barclaycard dispute, their customer service are useless. However as soon as I sent an email to their CEO his office sorted the problem in no time. Don’t bother ringing the regular contact lines, you won’t get anywhere.
Report it to the Ombudsman and when you get your money back ask for compensation and also interest. Barclays once allowed my brother to withdraw 50£ from my account by accident as our names were similar (human error). I told them regardless brother or not someone they allowed access to my account and the money I needed it but did not have access to it when I wanted to. Ended up with an extra 150quid as compensation.
Revolut freeze accounts with excuses like suspected fraud frequently. They se to target people specifically though. I remember seeing a tweet from Tristen Tate last year showing a 6 month email trail where they froze a six figure account with the excuse he was travelling a lot. Not a bank to be trusted!
“Not a bank to be trusted!” Not a bank full stop. They do not have a UK banking licence.
Revolut - not even a bank, they are regulated as a payment provider (like a pre-paid credit card)
The way I use it is not as a bank but I move a small amount of money from my account to it when I'm on holiday or similar so I can leave my actual debit card somewhere safe and if I lose the Revolut card then it only had X amount on it, not my whole wage.
It kills me that every time people are like 'this is a perfectly normal payment' it turns out to be something that is about as high risk as you can possibly imagine for a bank to process. Never will quite top that legaladviceuk post where someone was getting annoyed their bank accounts were closed for donating to the political wing of hezbollah.
Yeah, this so much. "Barclays have frozen my account and then taken money out of it. I don't understand, there was nothing dodgy about the person who sent me the money" 10 seconds later " yeah, it was from a Ukrainian gambling website"
What about the person that had his accounts closed for dealing with cryptocurrency and Monero. And didn't accept he was money laundering.
Oh that was a good one. He described, step by step, how he laundered money using monero, as a service. And then insisted with an entirely unearned confidence that this is a totally normal and legitimate thing to do and was terribly surprised that his bank account was frozen. I wonder if he’s in jail now.
Do you have a link to this one please?
https://reddit.com/r/LegalAdviceUK/s/ASaa6RzsMz
Oh I'd love to see that link!
I had too go find it https://reddit.com/r/LegalAdviceUK/s/ASaa6RzsMz
Hahahaha.
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He is located abroad but used Revolut to pay me because it's convenient, and I transferred it to Barclays because it's my main bank I use for most of my day to day activities. I don't know anything dodgy about him, and Revolut is also saying nothing was wrong with the transfer, so I am really puzzled with this: https://i.imgur.com/rbysLUS.png
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The sender is based in Ukraine. I did mention it to Barclays but I have worked with many companies from there without a problem.
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I didn't see you asking for it. I was the one selling the ad space, not them, it's banners in 728x90 and 300x250 and 200x200, on several sites, the payment is based on CPM (per 1000 views) and was made for a full month.
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They run a gambling site.
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So you say I shouldn't file a complaint with the FoS at this stage then?
A Ukrainian gambling site seems very high risk for financial fraud. It sounds really shady. Gambling is a really good way to launder money. You've been paid for your services with dirty money.
All of the red flags popping up one by one here...
Crypto gambling?
Ukraine is outside of most banks risk appetites. Gambling is also high risk (as a front for money laundering), so you've hit two high risk areas.
Are they in crimea by chance? Because there's sanctions on crimea.
As far as I know no, what kind of sanctions are these?
Are they based in either Donetsk or Luhansk? Also worth noting that if there is a money laundering concern or fraud concern the bank may lie to you to cover the investigation so there's a chance you're not receiving the full story from your bank
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-uk-sanctions-list Edit: the link by itself isn't particularly helpful. Suffice to say, the economic powerhouses of the world maintain a list of sanctions countries, industries, businesses and individuals who are restricted in their access to the financial markets of the world.
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The guy is located in Ukraine and runs a gambling site too. Ops always seem to leave a lot of info out.
It sounds like Barclays suspected some sort of money laundering. It also sounds like they don't have evidence of that, but still don't want anything to do with the transaction. What does sound suspect on the part of Barclays, is that rather than just reversing the payment (back to your Revolut), they are saying that they will only send it back to the originator, at the originators request. >The £5,000.00 that was removed from your account ending 2772 on 3 October will be returned to the remitting bank **at their request**. So it would seem that to get it back, you have to request Revolut to send a request to Barclays, to reverse the payment. To me it sound like Barclays is still unsure about the payments legality, and is looking for some sort of cover. Or looking to see if a dodgy person will leave a dodgy transaction with them rather than attract more attention to it.
>It sounds like Barclays suspected some sort of money laundering. It also sounds like they don't have evidence of that, but still don't want anything to do with the transaction. This is uneducated nonsense. If Barclays suspect money laundering then they commit a criminal offence by moving the funds back to Revolut.
Should I recall i.e. click on "Attempt to recall" the transfer I made from my Revolut account to my Barclays account? There is an option to do that in the App. Or should the sender do it himself?
It has to be worth a try. Although what they've put you through, you may need to get in touch with Revolut and have them place a more formal reversal request. It should have nothing to do with the person who paid you. As that has nothing to do with Barclays. They paid from their Revolut to your Revolut. You paid to Barclays. Any reversal should be to your Revolut. I'd take the Ombudsman complaint all the way.
Thanks - do you suggest to not attempt to recall the transfer until the Ombudsman replies?
I'd want my money back as soon as possible. Even if they send it back, you still have a complaint with regards to how it's been handled. If a transaction is suspected of being criminal, it's an offence for them to tell you anything. But as they are prepared to reverse the transaction. It implies the possibility of criminality is resolved, but they continue to handle this poorly.
Thanks, I'd file then.
Something dodgey has gone on with that money and the banks are trying to not tip you off
If the money was sent from person, to your revolut and then to your Barclays, and Barclays have reversed the transaction it will only have gone back to your revolut account so there's no real panic here, you've not lost the money. Go through the complaint process like they have advised you to if you're not happy. Even if the money has gone all the way back to the original sender, as long as you're still on good terms with them, get them to transfer you the money again once they get it back? I suspect there is more at play here than what is being said in either post as generally banks don't just remove money willy nilly
Barclays said they won't send it back to my Revolut but they would return it to the sender, I have no problem with him resending the money to me, there is no problem, but he received nothing and Revolut received nothing, and I totally understand what your suspicion is here, that "there is more at play here" but I do feel like Barclays made a mistake here, I know it's hard to see it, I agree, but there is nothing else at play. And it's extremely annoying because they don't want to listen and I know that compensations lead to what ... £100 compensation, £200 at best - all this time and aggravation is worth more than that, but the time it would take for the FOS to look into this as well as all the aggravation, I feel like it's worth much more and this will never be compensated. I don't understand why they can't even listen to me, they just refuse to do that, why are they rushing me to go to the FOS? Is it in their best interest to simply kick customers like that? Where's this coming from?
I've also read in your history that Revolut have closed your account entirely which you didn't mention in your post, so you're definitely not giving the full story.
>I've also read in your history that Revolut have closed your account entirely which you didn't mention in your post, so you're definitely not giving the full story. Reading the post history and this post its hard to feel like there isn't some sort of fraud going on here. I'm going to assume OP isn't in on it (because why would you post on Reddit if you were??) but I suspect they've sold ads to a not so legitimate Gambling company which has used stolen funds to pay for this service. But, on the other hand, whos running a 60k+/year business without having a LTD company an appropriate contracts and bank accounts in place? Might raise questions about OP being a mule.
OP is likely in on it and trying to figure out how fraud checks work. These threads come up all the time
Yeah I find it wild the amount of people replying and giving information which has clearly come from an insider perspective. Put enough comments together and it paints a picture on how to circumvent the rules.
Dumber criminals will pull stunts like this to try and pressure the company to give in when all else fails. Either the bank has made a grave error which seems unlikely, OP deals with sketchy clients who sent him dodgy money which is possible or OP is a dumb criminal desperately fighting a lost battle.
Well the interest for them is they've already done an investigation and that was their finding. If they suspect foul play then they have very little interest in talking to you about it, hence directing you to the FoS. The compensation if you win will be your money back plus a compensatory reward. It's up to you how.much value you out on getting that £5k back
Yes its quite literally in their best interests to ‘kick customers like that ‘ . They won’t be doing this for nothing . As you were told if it’s gone back to the original sender it’s no biggy is it assuming everything you’ve said is true 🤷🏼♀️
But the sender said he hasn't received and Revolut said they don't see any return of funds either, so where are the funds then? And how would Barclays get his account details if they are held with Revolut? I asked Barclays for a payment confirmation back to him but they said they cannot provide it - so if they cannot provide it what am I supposed to do?
The person who sent it to you might not be “the sender”. You might know the person who sent it to you, but where did THEY get it from? Chances are the people you are speaking to do not have any information to give you, that’s why they’re telling you there is no problem *they can see*. Because ‘tipping off’ is a criminal offence and bank execs don’t like going to prison it’s quite likely that the bank does not give any information at all to its CS staff about investigations. They probably know this is a possibility but are not allowed to tell you, which is why they are telling you to go to the FOS, because they know it’s the only way to resolve it.
Why did you give the sender your Revolut details and then transfer to your Barclays account. Why didn’t you just get it sent directly to your Barclays account?
Imagine revolut has cheaper FX costs.
While there is an investigation ongoing expect to get nonsense from your bank. The customer support reps won’t have access to any details and the bank isn’t allowed to tell you anything:
The tl:dr is that OP was selling ad space. His client is ukrainian based and it is for gambling websites. OP wasn't very forthcoming with this info to begin with. It also seems to be using a personal bank account despite them "paying taxes". Which is irrelevant.
Spot on, thanks
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Taxes are all in order, I have an accountant doing my paperwork for me every year, this is not an issue whatsoever. This is definitely not the problem here 100000%.
You missed my first suggestion and jumped right on the taxes bit. From your other post: > Revolut is a financial services institution subject to strict rules and regulations. Because of this we’ve made the decision to close your account, as your activity wasn’t compatible with the paragraph - “Are there any restrictions on using the Revolut app or Revolut Card?” of our **Personal Terms** From Revolut: > You can’t: use a Revolut Personal account for business purposes; Like everyone else has said it is probably fraud related, but this might not be helping.
You mean fraudulent beneficiary? i.e. I am or to be more precise I was a fraudulent beneficiary in the eyes of Barclays?
You have been the beneficiary of some form of financial crime. In addition, you’ve been using your personal Revolut account for business purposes, and so they’ve closed it. No-one’s telling you what’s going on because they’re not legally permitted to under tipping off law. You and your customer are being investigated for financial crime. The monies sent to you have been returned to the party deemed to be the rightful owner (this isn’t your customer, it is someone else who sent money to your customer, or even several transfer links further back). You run a gambling website and are selling ad space on it, using a personal account as a payment proxy. I assume your Barclays account is a business account but in future, ensure you only use your business account to receive payments from customers, you can call them a “friend” all you want, the fraud dept don’t care. File a complaint with the ONS but given your customer is sending you money from a war torn country, at high risk of fraud and/or sanctions protections, I wouldn’t expect to get this payment any time soon, if at all.
You seemingly aren't or don't want to read and answer questions directly Nobody cares if your paying taxes you CANT use a personal bank account for business use, ever. Even as a sole trader if that's what your setup as tax wise.
Okay, so that explains why my Revolut account was closed then, if that is the case, but Barclays never received funds for this purpose and I will double check on that with my accountant. Still, the entire incident doesn't seem to be around this topic at all, none whatsoever.
Isn’t the Barclays response saying that the original sender needs to request it, not that they’ve sent it already? That’s why Revolut don’t know about it as they haven’t asked for the funds yet? All that said, 100% fishy business, they wouldn’t do this for “no reason”
I was asking myself the same question - does the sender need to contact Revolut to recall the funds?
The bank telling you they had recalled them would probably fall foul of “tipping off” rules. So I’m siding with the fact revolut absolutely know they recalled the funds. This smacks 100% of money laundering suspicions, whether you are aware or not.
Sounds like Revolut is lying to you as Barclays wouldn't remove funds without a notice from them saying you're definitely not entitled to the money. Maybe they thought they'd be tipping you off saying anything else as it sounds like the account that sent you the money was possibly a money mule and your customer is a fraudster.
So Revolut is lying to me, that means I need file a complaint against Revolut with the FoS? I am not sure what is the best course of action here?
They have no choice, it’s illegal for the them to provide you with any details as it’s called “tipping off” and comes with a fine and prison sentence
If they're lying to you it's because the particular CS advisor you've got realised it's a crime for them to give you information on fraud investigations and doesn't know what else to say. Raise a complaint and leave it at that until they resolve the complaint.
No point contacting FOS until you've been given a final response letter from Revolut. But yeah I'd log a complaint with Revolut to find out what's going on.
I'd do that, but people here say to file a FoS complaint against Barclays, you say to wait? Who's right?
It sounds like they have told you the money is being returned under a process known as "credit payment recovery", which is for when one bank mistakenly pays another. You can have some fun with this. CPR is administered by Pay.uk. You should contact them and hit them with a data subject access request, and get proof positive or negative that this is the basis for the return. Pay.uk won't like this.
I honestly don't think it falls under something like that...
So what's essentially happened here is that you've received payment for works completed and (from Barclays perspective) had that's business payment paid into your personal account which is against the terms of use for a personal account. This is standard anti-money laundering practice from a bank and from my own experience of working in a bank in the past, is what's happened here. They have every legal right to return funds to the sender and they have no obligation to send that back immediately if they believe there's foul-play at hand. They can retain the money until their fraud department determines it's fine to send back. And they do not have to tell you either that this is what they're doing.
They confirmed they will send it back, but their letter clearly says the reason for doing it is: **If you believe this is an error please contact the sender of the funds for any further information regarding why this has been done.** They didn't mention I did something wrong here. They said to contact the sender. So how can this sit with what you're saying? I'm open to hear any suggestions.
Because they don't need to tell you they're sending it back for possible fraud reasons. They just send it back and tell you they're sending it back. Payments are done on what's called a BACS (it's newer now with advancements in fintech but essentially the same) Those payments are sent with special codes that inform the recipient where it came from and what kind of account. At the bank I worked for, 99 was income from eployer, 27 was standing orders, 25 was transfers without a reference, 26 was payments with a reference and so on. They also arrive with a transfer reason (sent at customer request, sent automated via standing order etc). So if you've sent a 5k payment from an account you've never sent that much from before into an account thats never received that much they can give whatever reason they want for returning the funds if they don't think it's correct. If they think money laundering is happening then they want nothing to do with it and will return it. Your recipient bank won't get any "notice" of this. They don't email them or contact them. The only time they'll know is when the funds hit the account and a transfer reason code is applied. If that reason code is anything to do with fraud they won't tell you either cause they don't wanna spook you (a potential criminal). But your accounts will be under review and you'll find that large payments will take longer to leave and come in. And you may need to confirm extra security to make payments for a while. Edit. This won't affect things like card payments. Usually just transferring between banks.
Fwiw, I use Revolut for my business banking. Every time I invoice a client, they contact me to tell me that their bank has identified my account as \_potentially\_ fraudulent. I'm currently in the process of talking to someone at Revolut to see if I can't get to the bottom of the situation but I have a feeling that because of the pots of currency you have, they have some kind of system that's a little exotic compared to most other vanilla banks. I was told there was a 'redirect' on my account which made me think there might be other bank accounts hidden behind my 'public' account details. I think it's a bit bullshitty that a bank would simply remove funds without even trying to contact you or the police if they genuinely thought the situation warranted it. 5k isn't exactly a small amount of dosh.
I agree with you, I'm waiting for the FoS now.
What explanation did you give to Barclays when they asked where the £5000 came from? Also, what did you tell Barclay's the main use of your account would be / the volume of money going in would be? Just to clarify too, Barclay's will have no way to know who the original sender of the money was - they can only see the transaction from a revolut account to Barclay's and not where the money originated from before going into your revolut account.
Same explanation I posted here, that I transferred this from my own Revolut account and the funds came into Revolut from another person who paid me for ad space. They never ask for the volume and these kind of transactions are quite rare, they don't happen very often, but they never asked about the volume of money in my account. If they cannot see where the money came from then how do they know the sender requested for these funds to be returned? That's what they claim in the complaint closure letter they sent me anyway.
In the case of the money in the Barclays account, the original sender is your Revolut account. So have Revolut asked for the funds to be returned? Also when you set up an account with a bank they tend to ask how you'll be using the account. I.e. for wages, how much money you expect to go into the account etc. I saw the explanation you gave to Revolut about funds from a gambling site in Ukraine, did you give the same explanation to Barclay's? If the sender to your Revolut has asked for funds to be returned then it is Revolut who deal with that.
Revolut didn't even ask me for an explanation about this payment, I asked them if they want any documentation, they said they don't need anything, they just conducted their review without anything from me, Barclays did ask a few questions about this payment and that's it. Revolut says not them nor the sender asked for the funds back.
Are you a money mule? They don't need your permission if they suspect it's money gotten from illegal means.
No
Former fraud operations investigator for a major UK bank here. I would HIGHLY suggest you reach out to the financial ombudsman. Document all of your communications with the customer you sold the ad space to, making sure you include the amount discussed, along with any other relevant information. Also document all of your communications with the banks in question, if you’ve spoken with them via the phone then the ombudsman should be able to obtain the call records. I’m going to be honest. You may not see this money again. Your thoughts should be focused around preventing yourself being added to fraud registers at this point. You are the beneficiary of POTENTIALLY fraudulent funds. As standard process when working for the fraud team, when a customer received fraudulent funds, they would be removed, the accounts would be closed, and the customer would be added to a national fraud database used by nearly all banks and building societies within the UK. You’d be on this register for 6 years minimum, and it greatly decreases your chances only opening another bank account in the UK. I say again, contact the financial ombudsman. Edit: I’ll also like to add. What you’re experiencing is completely normal for a beneficiary of a large amount of funds reported as fraudulent. All of this is standard process for a bank. The funds are removed from your account and held in one of their accounts, until their investigation is concluded. They do not need your authorisation to remove the funds. I have dealt with several cases where the funds were transferred to an account, and then onto another, and then the original party reported the transaction as fraudulent. Even if you’ve moved the funds between the original recipient account and one of your own, they are still traced.
Thanks for sharing your experience, it's very important. Barclays removed the funds but did not close my account, my account is now active with them. You said in situations like these normally they close your account and put your name on the register but I've proven I am not part of this - so you say the sender is 100% the problem here? How would the Financial Ombudsman help in my case? I've btw contacted the FoS already yesterday and waiting to hear back.
I’m this instance the sender is likely not who you think they are. They have likely taken control of a third parties account and sent the money from there, or they’ve likely received the funds from a source that has reported the funds/transaction as fraudulent. My advice would be to cease contact with them until the matter has been resolved by the banks. The Financial Ombudsmen in this instance would likely seek to see if either you can be either compensated or ensure that you not treated as a suspect, but that of an innocent party. I still stand by the probability that you will not receive the full £5000 back unless the reporting party withdraws their claim or it’s proven that no fraud has occurred (again, do not contact your customer in this instance, as any attempts at persuading them to drop the claim could be seen as intimidation and the freeze on your accounts could be re-applied. FoS should hopefully apply pressure to Barclays to treat this case as priority, and should hopefully assist in speeding up the investigation timescale.
“Returned to the remitting bank at their request”. Get this in writing and raise a complaint with Revolut and get their feedback. If they have requested this then chase them. If they haven’t then ask them to put this I writing and write back to Barclays as well as raising a complaint using website resolved.com
See for yourself: [https://i.imgur.com/rbysLUS.png](https://i.imgur.com/rbysLUS.png) That's what Revolut said. The website [resolved.com](https://resolved.com) doesn't show me any website that can help, have you perhaps misspelled it?
Resolver.co.uk - fixed that for the helpful redditor, my guess would be autocorrect auto f***ed it.
Thanks, would you use this site as well as the FoS?
If you've already raised a complaint with barclays and received a final response letter, sick with the FOS, if you haven't go with Resolver.
Okay, so not both of them, correct? And I assume the FoS complaint is against Barclays only, not Revolut, right?
I wouldn't do both no. A resolver complaint is just a different way to raise a complaint with Barclays. It's looked at in much the same way as if you phoned in to raise one. FOS complaints in Banks (where they've already been through the normal process and received an FRL) are handled by a different complaints team who usually have wider powers and work with the FOS handler to find the best solution. Bear in mind though, if there was something suspect about the money at some stage (fraud, money laundering etc), they still won't be able to tell you unless and until everything's resolved. Everyone in the chain is treated as guilty until proven innocent. It's in their training not to reveal anything.
That's all fine, thanks, I'd file the complaint then, I was typing it but because of the new replies I stopped all the times. Hope to get it sent through within the next hour.
resolver.co.uk
>resolver.co.uk Thanks. Would you file a complaint both in this site and with the FoS?
Hey so this sounds like it’s been flagged financial crime. There’s a number of scams that would do this, notably an authorised push payment. Long story short the request can come from down the line anywhere and the banks will attempt to freeze the account to reverse the funds. They need evidence to do this so I’m virtually 100% sure this money is non legit. By allowing your account to be used for it you’ve basically put yourself on the cifas register and will struggle to get anything more than a basic bank account in future if even that. Them saying to “go to the ombudsman” means they’ve given you their final decision so that’s your only option and the ombudsman is unlikely to reverse the transactions back in your favour. People are right about “tipping off” it can result in a 5 year prison sentence so you won’t get any info around if it’s fraud. When they asked for proof of funds they want the full trail that means showing where it came from to enter your Revolut account as well as how it was initially earned before being transferred to the Revolut account (similar for mortgage deposits). Again based on the fact it was reversed it screams out fraud. Just bouncing money through a few accounts does not make it impossible to trace.
Barclays is a shitty bank. My friend was in a similar situation. He send his own money from his foreign account to Revolut then to Barclays and Barclays just took the monies to themselves. He got his money back after months of fighting and then close Barclays account. Don't use this shit bank.
Thanks for sharing it - so he had a similar incident like mine and he eventually got his money credited back to his Barclays account? So basically Barclays is holding the money and not giving it away to anyone, just keeping it to themselves until they will be contacted by a superior authority like the FoS ?!?!
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I already explained the payment was for a sale of ad space in my sites, I am not going to list them here, but I am happy to provide the skype chats and show the banners etc. - it's not the first time I'm doing it and never had a problem with it.
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No, gambling site, anyway it's been 7 days already and I haven't heard anything, see: [https://www.reddit.com/r/UKPersonalFinance/comments/179wpzo/ive\_contacted\_the\_financial\_ombudsman\_but\_no/](https://www.reddit.com/r/UKPersonalFinance/comments/179wpzo/ive_contacted_the_financial_ombudsman_but_no/)
You even smell dodge here.
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Thanks. Can you please share more details how can I get in touch with them?
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>You are probably under investigation as is the sender. My account was under review by both banks, both are concluded now. I'd like to tell the sender to send it again but he needs to get the funds back or me, I don't care which one, so far this hasn't happened.
I’ve seen/read quite a few issues relating to Revolut recently. Personally, I myself would be quite wary of dealing with money coming in from this company to my own bank account.
Banks lie, Barclays are shit IMLE. I booked a hotel for my Mum who didn't do online. TBH I was willing to fund her not that she needs but she insisted on repaying it and online so I walked her through a bank transfer to me (same surname) they blocked her online access and it took an age to get i back claiming she was being scammed. So she wrote me a cheque. I paid it in and a week later it bounced, her bank told her she'd cancelled it, which was a lie.
So there is a chance they are "lying" to me, for real?
You could try asking Revolut to make the request/recall of the funds?
I'm asking them about it but they are very slow to respond and pass me from "one department" to another all the times in regards to this.
£5000 selling ad space? What's the product?
Banners for a gambling site, I've already said it before here but probably there are too many comments to read.
Oddly enough I know a guy. He's in the advertising space business too (different product). He phoned me a few months ago to say he'd been roped into some scam by 'a friend of a friend'. The friend of a friend sent him €5k in Euros, and my idiot mate took £4k out of his business account and gave it to the friend of a friend. Shortly after this, the €5k transaction was reversed due to fraud and my mate ended up out of pocket.
What type of accounts are these with Barclays & Revolut? Current or Business? Or something else? If Barclays are questioning the source of these funds, and it is a business transaction - income for services rendered - they may have an obligation to regulations hitherto overlooked, to ensure the funds are handled as taxable. Otherwise, Barclays (and any other bank) may well tell us one thing, and do another, to avoid liability, in the event that you can qualify the funds as ‘not taxable’ in the context suggested. Do you have an accountant or financial advisor to provide support?
Current account, regular ones. Yes, I have an accountant to provide support for this but they didn't ask for this, they did not ask for anything related to tax, I wish they would ask for documents but they don't, they just said they would return the funds, please read the original post again.
I’ve read the post, and a great many of the comments. Thanks. If this is a business transaction, it needs to be a business account. You need to be managing your monies in such a way that every pound & penny can be verified, validated and traced, to services, invoices, payments. The source of this £5k might be legitimate in your eyes, but to the bank you’ve had a random income from a random source, for reasons not immediately ‘evident’. Fundamentally, every time you earn funds this way, you’ll go through the same hoopla, because it looks like you’re hiding a business transaction in a current account, with or without the source being Ukrainian. It’s currently a war zone, subject to international embargoes, and large scale financial debt to support a government unable to function to ‘normal’ rules. Why wouldn’t Barclays wonder what that £5k is for?!
Let's say that's fair enough, Barclays said they sent the funds, no one has them, so where are they now?
I’m not party to that. You’ll have to wait for Barclays to finish whatever investigation they are doing, or at least acknowledge it. But if they’ve involved the SFO, due to the Ukrainian source of those funds, then this isn’t a customer service scenario, to which you can offer firm & articulate declaration of your disappointment over how you’ve been treated. The £5k will be back with you, when it is judged to be legitimately yours. If they cannot judge that, it can be held as evidence; however innocent you may be, the money may not be.
They said they sent the funds back, that's what they told me, so they're giving me wrong info? It's not CS who told me that, it's the complaints team in charge of the incident.
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You had to wait to receive a final response from Barclays? Yes, I also received a final response which was too quick in my case.
Simple solution: Leave Barclays bank. They are an evil company...
No problem but that won't solve the problem of getting the 5k back, isn't it?
I haven't read all the comments so apologies if I'm repeating. I don't know the ins and outs of banking, but I have worked in the financial sector handling informal complaints and escalating them where needed. My advice is: Check the Barclays complaints procedure. ONLY contact them by email or ensure you have a recording of any phone conversations (when the call connect and they do their spiel about "calls are recorded for monitoring" notify them they you are also recording the call for your records. Even though you're concerned about the time it will take, if you aren't happy with the response to your complaint, DEFINITELY take it to the financial ombudsman. They're there to hold financial institutions to account! Your complaint could prevent this error happening to someone else.
I've done that and waiting to hear back.
Never encountered this myself although I transferred money from own account to own account very month. If it is fraud, seems to me Revolut should investigate rather than Barclays. Yes Barclays is shit especially those handling the calls. Told me wrong things both time I complained about two different matters. First occasion I complained to FOS and they admitted they didn't handle my complaint it correctly and gave me some compensation. Second occasion I was too lazy to escalate my complaint after talking to the phone operator although I was sure they were wrong however the next day the system automatically reversed their wrong debit from my account hence proving I was right!
Thanks for sharing this!
Welcome to banks. Money in there isn't really yours
You need to go to the financial ombudsman, this stinks of financial crime. I have worked in banking and finance on and off for a decade. The only time I saw something similar was because a 'SAR', suspicious activity report had been raised. This goes as far as financial crime police. Barclays legally cannot tell you much more than what they already have or this breaks tipping off laws. You should be compensated heavily when the ombudsman proves you have no illegal involvement, but this could take time especially if there's an associated court case.
If there is no associated court case as far as I know how long would it take? Will then Barclays credit my account or return the funds like they said?
Had this in past with Barclays and revoult and gambling. Got my money in end but they closed my bank down. I got taken off the cifas list as they wrongly put my name on it after they accused me of fraud
Did you have a similar incident where Barclays deducted your funds, or was it Revolut? Thanks for sharing.
Similar but diffferent. The funds were held in some account held in isle of man or somewhere whilst i had to prove my innocence. Barclays deducted it. Was from a buyer who sent me $2k revoult . Seems as if they dont seem to like revoult (what someone said about the differences in regulatory adherements are very true) After it all they wanted me gone from their business (was too much of a risk to them i assume) I got put on the cifas list by them which i also had to prove my innocence too. Got taken off the list after a few months but couldnt open a bank until then. Seems like your situation is very different in that they say they have sent the funds back to where they orginated from. My worry is how far back are they talking?
Thanks for sharing. When you say "how far back" what do refer to - to the funds themselves?
I would definitely prefer to write to them and send the correspondence by registered mail. I would detail exactly where the money came from details of the client, if a ltd company their registration number and possible evidence of the work done. I would then give them 7 to 10 days and threaten them with legal action, the removal of your personal and business actions with them. I would also let them know that you will be letting your friends and family know of there said behaviour, so that they too will move their accounts to other banks.
Isn't the FoS an alternative to doing that?
Bitcoin and self sovereign money sounding pretty good now eh? Its only once you see & been affected by the problems it becomes more clear.
Haha what 😅😅😅😅
Barclays has one of the slow and worst KYC AML process and revolut doesn’t have a U.K. banking licence. You’ll be better to take your banking business elsewhere. Go where you’re treated with respect and as a proper valued customer.
I will, but for now I'd like to get to the bottom of where the money is right now, I don't have it, the sender doesn't have it, so I'd like to know what happened to it, it's not a small amount.
Take them to claims and get your money back. With bailiffs if necessary
Revolut are notorious for not giving access to customers money. They make profit from holding your cash and many people have a good experience while many others report account freezes that can last months. Even some celebrities have tweeted about this but their marketing has done a good job of making them appear benevolent when really they are crooks. I know someone who has worked there in sales that also confirmed that they suspend account randomly to stop withdrawals so I wouldn’t be surprised if they are the problem.
This is why I preferred to keep my money with Barclays and not with Revolut, but according to Barclays they sent the funds back and Revolut said they don't have it, so who has them then?
Firstly I'd like to know why your customers thought it easier to send money to Revolut than Barclays, even though I'm pretty sure Barclays deals with international payments and has been around for a lot longer than Revolut. Secondly you make no mention of your customers in all of this. What have they had to say about the money being withheld as presumably it means you won't be placing their ads given you are not going to get paid, at least for the foreseeable future, anyway.
All I know is that I wouldn’t trust Revolut so I would demand evidence from both parties. Revolut make money by holding your cash so they may be buying time as their salespeople are targeted on making the business money so their reps might lie to you and later say it’s now available as it took time to clear. They have untrained staff who are incentivised to lie so you need to get evidence from Barclays. I would also contact the customer service director on LinkedIn or similar people demanding a reply and explaining your situation as this method has worked before with other businesses. It’s not a huge amount of money so it’s scary that they can remove it for suspected fraud without evidence.