It maybe wasn’t clear over my various posts on this, but I’m not suggesting Monzo/any other bank is doing anything wrong or shouldn’t be following the laws governing this stuff
It was more to do with the actual laws they have to follow, and how for a victim of a false positive flagged account (again due to the laws Monzo must follow - and I’m not suggesting they shouldn’t), it could be very damaging to their life when they have done no wrong.
Of course, there have been plenty of counter arguments on this - relating to the greater good side of things (small number of false positives vs many real criminals blocked from being able to continue their crimes).
I’m not an expert on any of this stuff though (clearly ) so I’ll probably just leave it there.
There is an interesting blog post from a law firm called Brett Wilson.
It’s worth a read. A couple of interesting extracts…
"The number of SARs has increased steadily. The latest available statistics (October 2015 to March 2017) show that over 630,000 SARS have been made in an 18-month period. The National Crime Agency reported that 43,290 SARS were received in March 2017, the highest number ever recorded for one month."
"(over half of all SARs are reported by the Big Four, and 80% from all banks)."
Why can’t the Bank tell John about the SAR? The answer can be found at section 333 of POCA. It is a criminal offence to tip someone off about a SAR; that is to notify them that they know or believe that a SAR has been made when to do so is likely to prejudice any investigation.
In John’s matter, the NCA has responded to the Bank within seven working days refusing consent pro tem and indicating it needs more time. This means the Bank must keep the inhibition in place for a further 31 calendar days (known as the ‘moratorium period’) while the NCA decide what action to take, whether it be to restrain or seize the funds, or take no further action. During this period, Dave and other members of the bank cannot provide John with any explanation to avoid tipping off.
In John’s case, if John was involved in an international fraud, knowing that a SAR had been made could prompt him to notify co-conspirators and/or flee from the jurisdiction. This is unfortunate because if the money was legitimate (e.g. a bona fide inheritance from his late grandmother) he could explain this and seek to assuage any suspicion.
Surely freezing an account and preventing access to funds is enough to tip someone nefarious off about a SAR anyway? “Sorry there’s a bug” just wouldn’t wash for that amount of time - TSB excluded - but definitely not from a more customer focused bank like Monzo.
It’s not Monzo’s fault - but the law really can be an ass.
Yeah I’ve gotta say the laws just don’t make sense to me on this one!
If you were a criminal, knowing you have illegally obtained funds coming into your bank, and all of a sudden it stopped working for days on end, you couldn’t access your money, and the bank couldn’t tell you anything - I think that’s about as obvious a tip off to a real criminal as you could possibly get.
I don’t know what the solution is - but there’s gotta be a better way.
I agree that the law isn’t the best in this area and could definitely be changed.
But there is a distinct difference between the bank Monzo freezing your account, and an individual “tipping-off” the criminal about a possible investigation. Whether the criminal can infer that he is subject to an investigation through the Bank’s action is different to an individual informing you. As far as I am aware, “tipping-off” is a personal crime.
Rarely, we’ll block an account that looks suspicious, but after investigating find there’s a perfectly reasonable (and legal) explanation for the activity. When this happens we unblock the account and apologise to our customer.
I think the term apologise is used loosely here. Obviously it depends on each individual circumstance for how much of an “apology” you would get.
I imagine in the worst case you will get an apology and compensation. I’ve seen people mention that they’ve been given compensation for poor customer service, never mind being locked out of your account.
I think this is an oversimplification as this recently happened in my partner’s account, from a source never dealt with before and not her employer and nothing happened.
You have missed what others have picked up on - those complaining all seem to end up with their account back, and if it is the law, why do Monzo seem to be flooded with complaints on social media, but the other banks aren’t?
Everything in the blog is true, but it is also deliberately misleading. Why? well it deflects from the real issue, which is how quickly they resolve the situation and puts the emphasis on why they might have blocked the account in the first place (which no one would argue with).
I had my account frozen - my crime ? I got paid and tried to move my wages back to my old bank (to cover payments and stick the rest in my ISA). I guess this means there are two possible reasons why they froze my account - either money laundering or fraud. If it was a fraud alert - I don’t blame them for blocking the transfer, but it was a genuine transaction and it took them more than a day to confirm this (which left me stranded with no money). I once triggered a security block on my old bank while transferring money, they sent an SMS informing me to phone their fraud line, I got on the phone and passed the security check and confirmed it was genuine within 10 minutes. If Monzo suspected me of money laundering, well, I work for one of the biggest companies in England - it was obviously my salary being paid in.
Reading the forums and social media, most blocks seem to just be standard potential fraudulent activity and the issue is Monzo completely lack the ability to deal with this in a manner acceptable to their customers. It is probably a combination of their I.T systems not being as sophisticated as they need to be, while also not having enough staff to deal with it.
The blog conveniently doesn’t give any stats around how many are false positives and how many are just your standard “probably genuine but we’ll play it safe” fraud alerts (as opposed to serious organised crime).
Oh and for those asking how do they deal with the false positives - you get a message saying “Your account is now active, sorry for the inconvenience”. This has got BBC Watchdog written all over it. I could write so much more about what happened to me, but it’s starting to turn into a blog under a blog.
) so I’ll probably just leave it there. 
- but definitely not from a more customer focused bank like Monzo.