Guidance on how to submit a Claim in court against a Bank if your money is blocked
Banks

Guidance on how to submit a Claim in court against a Bank if your money is blocked

TIG Team
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Dear Reader,
On daily basis we are approached by people both in the UK and various EU countries over blocked bank accounts at various online banks, that are regulated in the UK. For example, Monese, Starling Bank, Transferwise (now WISE) and similar.
People are writing, even calling us, and saying that their monies are blocked even for years. These people have been complaining to their online banks for a long time and feel hopeless in their attempts to recover their money, especially as there is no result on their attempts to understand what is going on and when the money will be released.
These banks do not give any reasons why the account is blocked, in most cases there are no notices before the account is blocked, there are no set timeframes on how long the investigations can take, nor there are no published documents on investigation procedures.
In general, based on our experience, there are 2 ways to recover the money in the shortest timeframe:
  1. You can submit a Claim at Money Claim Online yourself
  2. You can get help from a lawyer (or our barristers can help you)

Here below is the way we have found to be most effective in dealing with helping releasing blocked money from restricted/blocked accounts, and this knowledge is based on our experience and the experience of our barristers.

Step 1. Send an email to your online bank saying that this is a lagal notice, and you will submit a claim in the court if money is not released in 7, 14 or 28 days (everybody makes their own decision on the number of days, where 28 days is the safest number of days your bank will have difficulties saying that 28 days were not enough).

Step 2. Prepare all the numbers and dates on the sheet of paper.

Step 3. Read the official UK Guide make a court claim for money: LINK (click here)

Step 4. Go to the website https://www.moneyclaim.gov.uk/ and create an account. It is important for you to write down all the information related to opening this account: email, user ID (string of numbers), password and recovery word.

Step 5. Now, when you are registered, on the main page ot MCOL, press the button “Begin New Claim”. Screenshot:

on the main page ot MCOL, press the button “Begin New Claim”
Step 6. Follow the guidance and keep moving to the next pages, till you get to the “Claim Particulars”.

Note: Please use the official website of the UK Company House to find the correct registration address of the bank that has stolen your money:  LINK (click here)

Step 7. You are required to give short Particulars of your Claim. Start it with Introduction: Who the Parties are (very short). Then, the Agreement Contract (what is was and when was it formed), Terms of the Contract, What was the Breach of that Contract and what was the resulting damage.

Step 8.  Please proceed with payment. After the payment is done > DO NOT CLICK ANYWHERE! (wait to be redirected back to MCOL), your Claim has been submitted. Now it will take 1-3 (usually) working days for the Court to issue the Claim, and at this point the CCBC Court will send the documents of an issued Claim to the Defendant.

Step 9. Now, right after the Claim has been submitted, you can download the submitted Claim and email it to the customer service of your bank, informing them that you have submitted a Claim against them in court in order to recover your money.

This is where you will get the downloadable copy of the Claim you have just submitted at MCOL (Note: it will already include a unique Claim number that will be the main reference to this particular Claim, called ‘Claim number’):

This is where you will get the downloadable copy of the Claim you have just submitted at MCOL
What happens next (usually):
  1. Court will send documents of a new Claim to your bank
  2. Your bank (most often) will forward the Claim to a 3rd party Law firm, that will file aknowledgement of the case and will submit a document that they are representing your bank in these proceedings
  3. Bank might contact you and ask you to provide alternative bank account details that they can send you the blocked amount. If this does not happen – prepare for a rather time consuming case.
  4. Bank or their lawyers will submit Directions Questionnaire and their Defence
  5. The Court will request you to send in the directions questionnaire. This is a good moment to add a Reply to Defence when sending back your DQ. Note: Do NOT miss any deadlines.
  6. There might be Mediation Call, if both sides agree to this.
  7. The Court will transfer the Claim to a relevant County Court (ask the Court in your DQ to transfer the Claim to your local County Court, as the closest to the Claimant)
  8. Wait for the Claim transfer order.
  9. Now the Claim has been forwarded to a relevant County Court. Wait for the notice of hearing. Read carefully this notice/order as it will contain instructions and set different timeframes for both parties (in regards of submitting more documents). Note: if there is a payment notice – don’t miss the deadline and make this payment asap.
  10. Exchange all documents with the Defendant and before the Court hearing you should have submitted a full hearing bundle that contains all letters received from Courts, email exchanges with Defendant, Defence, Reply on Defence, Witness Statements of both sides with Exhibits and more.
  11. The last part – you need to turn up at the hearing with or without a lawyer.
And the best advice is: Hold your funds and savings in respectable high-street banks, that has physical operational branches that you can visit them any time when these are open.
Please share this Guidance with your family and friends, that they are not put in the position that some day they are surprised that their money is blocked by an online bank that hasn’t got even 1 office that accepts customers in person.

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4 thoughts on “Guidance on how to submit a Claim in court against a Bank if your money is blocked”

  1. Hello

    Your website is fantastic . I have a question my account was recently locked by Revolut due to a first name amendment which I requested and was completed by one of their agents . Once the first name was changed and confirmed I was suddenly locked from my account . I have over £4500 pounds in funds and have been back and forth with there awful customer service . They are not helping and giving no answers. It’s very worrying that I have no access to my money .

    Just wondering what I can do.

    Reply

    1. Good afternoon Ahmed,
      Thank you for contacting us, our barristers can try help you. Revolut is well known for freezing accounts, blocking all money, and not responding. This is how they operate and Revolut keeps these monies in their accounts. The only way is to take them to the Court. Please send us an email (our barristers can start acting 30 days after the money has been blocked) to contact@thisisgambling.com
      Best wishes, TIG team

      Reply

  2. Hello,
    Monese bloked my account for no reason with my money
    I send 7 mail and no answer
    How can I take my money?
    Please help

    Reply

  3. Hi there, I have tried 3 times to get my money out of Monese. Can you help me? I’ve sent you an email.

    Reply

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