It’s worth remembering that people who commit fraud say these things to try to increase the pressure on the bank to release their funds..
There is - this is what the Financial Services Ombudsman is for.
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Alex is correct, this is typically what happens. The emotional blackmail levels are intense. I have so much respect for our folks who work on crime cases. It is not an easy job.
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Why do some people leave such bad reviews ? So far my experience of Monzo has been 10/10
Trustpilot can’t be very reliable, as Barclays is rated 1/5 and all their reviews are negative.
While that may be true, it is undoubtedly true that innocent people are caught up in this and have their funds frozen, which - if you don’t have another bank account - can mean you literally can’t feed your kids next day. This can drag on for weeks. I cannot begin to fathom the anxiety and stress this must induce in a person.
How? The FOS cannot help you here, as far as I know. True, you can complain after the fact, and if unhappy with your bank’s response escalate it to the FOS. But how does that help in the situation?
That may be true, but I have to say: They chose this job. They are doing this from the comfort of their offices, before going home to their families and continuing their normal lives. If they find the job too hard they can quit at any time. But those whose funds are frozen don’t have any of those luxuries. Their lives may be literally turned upside down through no fault of their own. So, forgive me if I don’t have too much empathy for people doing this job…
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I guess there are two options: (1) people may have made negative experiences with Monzo. I think this is entirely plausible, despite your experience being stellar so far. (2) Fake reviews. This is also entirely plausible.
My personal opinion: It’s probably a bit of both.
That I fully agree with 
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What’s the solution then?
Their job is to make sure that this doesn’t keep happening.
Wow.
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I think I answered this already:
(Just in case this wasn’t obvious: This isn’t for the bank to do. I’m not blaming the banks, or individuals working at the bank. It’s for the government and parliament to amend laws and regulations.)
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Freezing assets with judicial would be too slow. I agree that banks shouldn’t have to deal with this but that’s not the situation unfortunately.
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Maybe. But the inability to prevent every crime is the price we pay for living in a free country …
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Freezing assets with judicial would be too slow
Which I guess is good because there is due process to be followed and many pairs of eyes over it to avoid mistakes. Otherwise, we start getting into the “shoot first, talk later” territory.
I’m all in for fighting crime, but not at the expense of hindering legitimate usage.
Not to mention, financial “crime” is just a symptom of a problem, not the cause itself. Nobody in their right mind wakes up and says “I’m going to do some financial crime today, just for the hell of it”. Financial “crime” is only there as a result of another crime, and the police are more than welcome to go at the source of the problem directly, instead of forcing the banks to do their job.
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Not at the moment, as far as I know, it’s entirely down to the bank to make the decision.
Obviously the banks have several incentives not to get this wrong..
Not at the moment, as far as I know
That was my point. Judicial supervision would ensure there is a due process and it’s not down to some overzealous or outright defective machine learning model making a bad decision.
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Sadly, I don’t think so: The penalties for failing to pick up “financial crime” are so severe that I think it creates every incentive for the banks to err 1000 times on the side of “freeze”, rather than once on the side of “don’t freeze”…
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Do you have any evidence to back that up?
That doesn’t prove that this is correct -
Are there any penalties for banks wrongly freezing an account, besides a pissed off customer and a bad review? The Financial Ombusdman process is slow and legacy, involves lots of paperwork and delays (and is kept “legacy” on purpose) so pretty much nobody even goes through that trouble, and even if they do, I’m not sure if it results in anything more than a slap on the wrist for the bank.
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It proves that the penalties are so severe. If you are asking for proof of what I clearly labelled as being “I think” then I must disappoint you - I cannot prove my thoughts further than writing them down …
Ok so it’s a guess based on no solid evidence, fair enough.
As is this statement:
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