All unsecured creditors should note this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25861717 and they revised the policy: HSBC is SO concerned about money laundering!!!!! Main issue is 'terms and conditions' I think considering the potentials for bail-ins etc
how bad is that. Now the bank want to decide whether the reason you want to spend your money is good enough. They are definately forgetting that it is our money and we are their customer, not the other way around. I think i would inform them that i wanted to start an account with another bank that does not try to dictate how i can live my life. okay, just saw your edit.
If the money is in an 'Instant Access' (At Call) Account, I would suggest that the bank is in default. As stated, the "Terms and Conditions' are unchanged, then the contract between bank and customer are also unchanged. JMO OC
Actually, if this is not a mandated Government action or policy, then i wonder if it is not a pre-emptive act to stop any 'run' before it starts. OC
If this was in the U.S, reducing the amount you want to withdraw would probably be reported in an Suspicious Activity Report or SAR (FinCEN Form 114). FinCEN is the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, an agency of the United States Department of the Treasury. Apparently reducing the amount you want to withdraw after being refused is a 'indicator behavior' for 'payment structuring'.
I would have closed my account there and then Get a bank cheque and put it in another account They used to ask questions with the old people in the uk to make sure they were not getting cleaned out by gypsies and thiefs ......and rightly so but if you are of sound mind then it's none of their bloody business what you want the money for ....... Especially if you have rung beforehand to book it in as they normally ask for ........ If it is over a couple of grand
Have met two people on the last few months that have been burnt to the tune of $20k each on "advance fund fraud" scams involving gold imports - come into contact with them when they approach the business about selling 10 or 20kg of gold coming from Ghana, Afghanistan etc that someone has inherited or bought cheap, but "need to pay freight", followed by "need to pay insurance", "need to pay export fees" etc with each sum getting bigger and bigger. Not fun breaking the news they're the victim of a lonely hearts scam - both times been men in touch with a "female" overseas met through chat rooms. They've literally withdrawn cash and Western Unioned it overseas. A well timed question might have saved them money, but a bank outright refusing to allow you access to your funds is a default IMO.
IMO... HSBC has been getting bad reports from different sources on the internet and maybe, just maybe they are true. Regards Errol 43
It has happened to my wife by the Commonwealth Bank, and also threatening to report us to AUSTRAC. When my wife reduced the amount to circumvent their limit, she was told that now they would definitely report her as a suspicious transaction. She went ballistic (as only a wife can do!).
Without going into any identifying details could you explain the circumstances ? Was the limit you are talking about in relation to withdrawing the money or only austrac related ? I actually have no problem having a transaction reported to austrac as I know the rules require it (and the real trigger amount is $7500 btw, not the advertised $10000), but if I want to withdraw money from an at call account, the bank has to provide the money and does not need to ask what it is for. I'm sure if you are depositing money they don't ask where you got it from
There's a difference between an AUSTRAC threshold report and a suspicious transaction report. First one is just a datapoint in a data warehouse (get too many though and people might pay attention to it), second one is a flag for further investigation. Basically threshold reports are used to do things like track people moving lots of cash out of the system before declaring they have no assets when applying for the pension, or for building up a transaction history in the event you are subsequently flagged with a suspicious transaction report when someone decides that you might be "up to no good". So if you are genuinely doing something dodgy like money laundering, a suspicious transaction report might trigger an investigation that looks at a) any threshold transactions and b) your banking history - so having a threshold report made is not much different to moving $10k electronically should you ever be the subject of an investigation, they can get your banking history any time if needed. I would not be concerned with having a threshold report made. Most of the AUSTRAC case studies that show people getting caught for money laundering are related to suspicious reports originating from money remittance services - i.e. people repeatedly wiring $9k at a time to Hong Kong etc and showing a student ID when they do it.
Without going into detail, it was just an ordinary cash withdrawal that was close to the limit. Nothing more.
Bottom line is: the bank doesn't have enough cash. If you don't have it in your hands, you don't have it.
I think they should ABSOLUTLY ask.....IF it is an unusual transaction for the account holder, and for I.d. It helps protect themselves and you, I don't mind if I walk in and ask for $10k and they ask why. Say someone walks in asking for $10k of my hard earned and they just hand it over, I'd be so much more pissed off than if they asked me for i.d. And a little question about what it's for, I can always make up any reason, but it might trip up someone else who's shady