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What to do about frozen accounts

Feb 12, 2018
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There are various reasons why a bank or financial institution can freeze your bank or financial institution account:
  • Your failure to comply with the KYC (Know Your Client) and AML (Anti Money Laundering);
  • Because of a court order due to civil doubts or civil claims;
  • Because of a court order as a cautionary measure in a criminal investigation.
In some of these cases you have to act quickly and appropriately. Generally, when your account is frozen, you can receive funds; however, you can’t withdraw them. This means that if you haven’t created a secure deposit or don’t keep reserves under your mattress, you can neither pay your accounts nor have the funds to hire a lawyer who can help you to unblock your account.
Even though it doesn’t seem like it, the cases of frozen accounts are more and frequent, for the most diverse reasons and, unfortunately, since no one expects them, the damages are frequently serious. Offshore banks and financial institutions systematically abuse the KYC and AML norms and, with this excuse, think that they can take your money while they annoy you with absurd requirements.
The Caporaso & Partners has dealt with hundreds of these cases and has specialized in unblocking frozen accounts and these days, thanks to their experience in this field, can help you unfreeze a frozen account.
Other than these court ordered lockups of bank accounts, whose legality is doubtful in many of these cases, there is an abnormal increase in lockups made by banks and financial institutions and that in the majority of these cases a legal basis is completely lacking. However, how can you argue with the person who is in control? They have our silver and force us to waste more silver complying with demands that without a doubt don’t give them the right to block an account. Furthermore, are thee demands always legal?
Actually, in 90% of the cases, the restrictions applied to a bank, financial institution or even a PayPal account are completely illegal. The problem is that going to court to demand our rights is an expensive and slow process, so we always try to use alternate means of pressure to obtain quick access to our blocked funds.
We advise you to prevent these situations in the following manner:
  • Don’t open accounts with incomplete documentation or which can’t be renewed;
  • Keep your savings and capital in various accounts, in various countries, so that you always have access to emergency funds;
  • Investigate the bank’s or financial institution’s history with account lockups so you can evaluate the risk;
  • Never think it will never happen to me!
  • The more money you have, the more protection you need: get good advice and, with time, it will cost you less and it is better to prepare than to complain.
 
Thank you for sharing your knowledge, however, most people are using their real ID's and have the documents in order but still the account get frozen because they are missing underlaying documents for the transactions processed.
 
Facts spoken by OP.

Keep your savings and capital in various accounts, in various countries, so that you always have access to emergency funds;

This means that if you haven’t created a secure deposit or don’t keep reserves under your mattress, you can neither pay your accounts nor have the funds to hire a lawyer who can help you to unblock your account.

I can't emphasize these parts enough. Ask people who had their entire money at Satabank when all accounts were all frozen for months. You were left to suffer by the Malta government during that period...take note.
 
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I can't emphasize these parts enough. Ask people who had their entire money at Satabank when all accounts were all frozen for months. You were left to suffer by the Malta government during that period...take note.
It's an very old saying, never put all your eggs in one basket, some wise word.
alleggs in one.webp
 
To bring this topic up again, what is the game play if an account got frozen in Switzerland. Because they need to update your KYC.
What I found so far:
  • Ombudsman
  • Hire a lawyer
  • Talk with the bank, maybe mention legal action's
  • Go directly to Schiedsgericht
Guess talking with the bank is fine. My exprience so far is that compliance is very very slow. So let's say they block your account with 7 figures money on it. You can't invest. Even with 4% interest rate it is a lot of money wasted. Can you sue them for the lost interest? What do you think is the right approach?
 
To bring this topic up again, what is the game play if an account got frozen in Switzerland. Because they need to update your KYC.
What I found so far:
  • Ombudsman
  • Hire a lawyer
  • Talk with the bank, maybe mention legal action's
  • Go directly to Schiedsgericht
Guess talking with the bank is fine. My exprience so far is that compliance is very very slow. So let's say they block your account with 7 figures money on it. You can't invest. Even with 4% interest rate it is a lot of money wasted. Can you sue them for the lost interest? What do you think is the right approach?
Don't sue them and dont mention legal action.. If your relationship with them is through an intermediary, engage that intermediary in the discussion and provide them with their KYC requirements. If your relationship is direct with the bank , provide them with their KYC requests. Once you have the funds freed, then and only then sit and think whether its worth it to do anything for loss of income.
 
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Don't sue them and dont mention legal action.. If your relationship with them is through an intermediary, engage that intermediary in the discussion and provide them with their KYC requirements. If your relationship is direct with the bank , provide them with their KYC requests. Once you have the funds freed, then and only then sit and think whether its worth it to do anything for loss of income.
Yeah I'm trying to talk to them. They just say, we think you are fine, but compliance has a huge backlog. Guess for large amounts it is both lost of income through interest rate and lost of confidence in the solvency of the bank. The question is, if you can force them to release the money fast. So looking for the fastest way. Not the cheapest.
 
Do you know someone good? Maybe I should just go to Caputo...
Good ones don’t like to sue banks. But they can write polite letters and work with compliance to solve the issue.

Yeah I'm trying to talk to them. They just say, we think you are fine, but compliance has a huge backlog. Guess for large amounts it is both lost of income through interest rate and lost of confidence in the solvency of the bank. The question is, if you can force them to release the money fast. So looking for the fastest way. Not the cheapest.
Doesn’t seem a good bank. Remember you get what you pay for. I recommend you move to Cité Gestion.
 
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Yeah I'm trying to talk to them. They just say, we think you are fine, but compliance has a huge backlog. Guess for large amounts it is both lost of income through interest rate and lost of confidence in the solvency of the bank. The question is, if you can force them to release the money fast. So looking for the fastest way. Not the cheapest.
For pressure send them a payment request. Nothing big, something that you may have done before, like an expense.
 
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Note
Will also try Ombudsmann.
For anyone interested. Have spoken with the person. In general it seems that compliance is a block box and are just doing what they suppose to do. So even if they block your account for 3 months you will not get any compensation in form of interest rates or whatever. The best way seems to wait or maybe write a letter to the board of directors.

Lawyer's seems not to help much, since compliance is just doing what they suppose to do...of course it is kind of profitable to block large amounts but that doesn't matter.
 
Meanwhile people continue to move millions $ around the world using btc, xmr…
Yes, hope the banks will die :) worst expirience ever. Will always have some crypto on the side. For worst case.

Would be crazy to hold most of your net worth in crypto. Moving crypto isn't worth a lot if you can't use and invest it.
If you want to buy real estate or invest in real companies and stocks you have to go through the banks in most countries. Then the banks have your money and can block you anytime...
 
Yes, hope the banks will die :) worst expirience ever. Will always have some crypto on the side. For worst case.

Would be crazy to hold most of your net worth in crypto. Moving crypto isn't worth a lot if you can't use and invest it.
If you want to buy real estate or invest in real companies and stocks you have to go through the banks in most countries. Then the banks have your money and can block you anytime...
It depends when you bought your crypto, if you are concerned about $ value.
Anyway, go with Cité Gestion + Mt. Pelerin, they are the best setup for on-off ramp large volumes and can set you up so that you don’t necessarily need to get out of crypto to invest in traditional assets.
If you PM me I can give you a direct contact (I earn no commission but I am happy that more money flows in ;))
 
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Yes, hope the banks will die :) worst expirience ever. Will always have some crypto on the side. For worst case.

Sadly these things happen. I discussed already years ago on here my Swiss bank being frozen for 18 months because of a payment from a bad actor (I had no idea at the time). Your case if just KYC issue then wait it out.


P.S Try and avoid TikTok lawyers who are not gonna be able to help in my experience.