Hacker News Reader

Comment by jasfi | Hacker News Reader

I had money disappear out of my NatWest account several years ago, when I lived in the UK. No transaction was present to show where it went. Nobody at the bank would speak to me about it, not to this day. I'm talking making it obvious that they didn't want to speak to me about it. That was one of many incidents where I was blatantly ripped off. Nobody there cared one bit.

EDIT: thanks for all the replies! That means something to me, I'll see if I can't get this sorted out. It's just weird that even the NatWest Twitter customer support account ignores my DMs.

View on HN

I've heard this can happen where money laundering is suspected. Apparently the banks aren't allowed to tip off the account owner that they're being investigated, with the result that the account owner's subsequent interactions with the bank become kafkaesque.

Well it's possible someone tried to make me look suspicious. But I think it's very unfair and even deceitful not to tell me anything at all.

  >Well it's possible someone tried to make me look suspicious.

You don't need to have done anything suspicious. I've been a victim of this myself. Several years ago, I had a Shares ISA [0] account, into which I invested a couple of hundred £££ every month out of my wages.

After about 5 years I was out of work and needed to cash it in. But, when I tried to withdraw the money, I got hit with an "Unexplained Wealth Order" [or somesuch term], telling me that under AML I needed to fill in some disgustingly intrusive form explaining where I'd got this sum of money from [it was only a few thousand £££, not a fortune]. And, as I said, this was from the savings company which already knew exactly where the money had come from. As they'd watched it build up in small amounts over the previous 5 years or so.

I refused to comply with their AML/KYC. It then took me at least a few months and several letters, threatening them with legal action before they finally agreed to just close my account and return my money.

I also closed my eBay account when they started asking for people to upload scans of their passports to verify their identity.

These companies can fuck right off, as far as I'm concerned. AML/KYC is disgusting and I just wish more people would make a stand and refuse to comply with it.

[0] https://www.moneyhelper.org.uk/en/savings/investing/stocks-a...

It was a long time ago, but I think I remember something about an Unexplained Wealth Order. It could be that my explanation wasn't good enough for them. I need to chase this up again.

I worked as a consultant (permanent position) and had expenses that frequently needed to be refunded by the company. Perhaps they thought this was money laundering??

AML rules are sadly very Kafkaesque. Having worked in finance for over a decade I've done enough compliance training to know that, yes, if money laundering is suspected you literally are not allowed to help the customer. You're not even allowed to tell them WHY you're unable to help. Failing to do so can make you, personally (the worker), criminally liable.

Telling the client "I'm sorry, your account is frozen pending an investigation" might land you in jail. You literally MUST lie to them and feed them a bunch of bullshit.

It's a shitty system, but interestingly, one that was developed by the EU, not specifically the UK.

Your options are; wait until some nameless government agency realises they've made a mistake, and releases your funds, or start a lawsuit and spend lots of time and money fighting to get your money back.

Hopefully that's what happened, then perhaps there's a small chance I can find out what did happen and maybe even see that money again. But it was more than 10 years ago, I think.

Punishment as part of a secret investigation, that you're not notified of or have a chance to defend yourself against in court, sounds rather undemocratic*.

*This word is sadly misused to mean "any unjust system of government". E.g. it is perfectly possible to have a constitutional monarchy, the antithesis of democracy, that respects the right to a fair trial and to face your accuser. Conversely, things people vote for are routinely dismissed as "undemocratic" - in that case, it gets called "populism". As far as I can tell, the words, as (ab)used, have nothing to do with the method of government, and everything to do with the outcome.

I've seen a lot of undemocratic actions by democratic countries. Democracies can be of a very weak form, that name alone is not enough.

What are you talking about the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is doubleplus good Korea.

> It's a shitty system, but interestingly, one that was developed by the EU, not specifically the UK

As much as, for the dismay of the average hacker news Joe, don't pray to the holy EU altar, I suspect sure those guidelines were sketched by FATF, an American institution at heart, ironically where such measures are not applied.

The AML framework is xenophobic and goes against things we consider basic rights like being innocent until proven guilty. However, it is not only ignored but applauded by the most progressive crowds that think its defending their countries from barbaric $place_from_the_east_or_south.

If a bank takes your money and won't tell you why, that lawsuit should be to get your money back and treble damages. As long as you can get in front of a jury, the jury will be very sympathetic....

  >It's a shitty system, but interestingly, one that was developed by the EU...

Ahem. As with most of these things. AML and KYC actually originated in the US. And [as ever] was then adopted by other countries. The present setup was a G7 creation. Not specifically EU. I'll let my learned colleague ChatGPT elaborate:

The first country to propose anti-money laundering (AML) rules is difficult to pinpoint with certainty as different countries developed their AML laws at different times and for different reasons. However, one of the earliest examples of an AML law is the U.S. Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) of 1970...

The "Know Your Customer" (KYC) rules originated in the United States in the 1970s, along with the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) of 1970....

Other countries began developing their own AML laws in the 1980s and 1990s, with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) established in 1989 to coordinate international efforts to combat money laundering...

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) is the global standard-setting body for anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing (CFT) policies. It was established in 1989 by the G7 countries, and its recommendations have been widely adopted by countries around the world....

Did you check if your colleague wrote truthfully?

My colleague wouldn't lie to me. We're terrific chums.

On the other hand, US didn't get contactless payments until much later than everyone else and as far as I know still does that thing where a credit card is pressed against some paper to capture the number; I haven't even _seen_ this done in person (I've never been to the US).

This is how it works in the US as well.

I mean, this isn't a UK-specific problem at all. PayPal in the US will happily do the same thing to you.

PayPal isn't a bank. Banks are held to higher standards regarding customer funds.

In Europe, PayPal is a bank: https://edesk.apps.cssf.lu/search-entities/entite/details/70...

That's... quite spooky, do you have any theories as to what happened? I hope you at least changed all your security info.

I think this is related to corruption - of which I am a target, which started in South Africa (where I'm originally from and have now moved back to), which seemed to spread to the UK when I moved there. I can't get anything in black and white either.

Raise it with the ombudsman!

I'll try again. Everything I've done seemed like a dead-end, but I'll try.

I’m curious how the appeared on your statement. Did a transaction of money coming into your account disappear?

There was no transaction. It looked like the money had never been there.

I don’t understand. Doesn’t your balance equal the sum of your transactions on your statement? I understand there is no outgoing transaction, but unless some “money in” lines were removed then how does it add up?

I don't know. The bank should explain that to me, but I haven't had anything from them.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com