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I have been very badly treated by TSB, even though I have never been a customer. It mistakenly placed three fraud markers against my name, which prompted my bank, Santander, to close all five of the accounts I held with it. This has caused significant financial problems since direct debits and standing orders failed, and I was unable to start a planned house extension. TSB has not responded to emails and letters since this happened eight months ago.
I have complained to the Financial Ombudsman Service, but because I am not a TSB customer, it can’t investigate.
RL, London
Your saga is a frightening reminder of how financial security can collapse overnight because of a stranger’s butterfingers. Even more alarming is how dilatory the companies involved can be in putting things right.
Your four savings accounts, and one current account, were summarily shut by Santander with whom you’d banked for years. Your credit record appeared in rude health and Santander refused to tell you why it had so suddenly taken against you.
You had to transfer the funds to the business account you hold with another bank, and feared that that would be axed, too, if the latter got wind of your unknown offence, leaving you unable to trade or eat.
You had just applied for a Santander mortgage to fund a home extension and, since you assumed that this would be declined, you had to cancel the job. It took you six weeks and a Data Subject Access Request (DSAR) to both banks to discover what was going on.
Back in 2021, a TSB account had been fraudulently opened in your name. TSB had thanked you for your cooperation with its investigation, then erroneously reported you to the National Fraud Database for three attempts at fraud. Then the fraud markers lay undetected on the database until Santander offered you a higher interest savings account. When you applied, its credit check identified the markers and your accounts were closed.
Bizarrely, though, your mortgage application was subsequently accepted. By then, your builder was booked up till winter and you had to spend Christmas without a functioning kitchen.
This also left you making repayments on a loan months before you had actually needed it.
TSB initially insisted to you, despite DSAR evidence, that it had recorded you as a fraud victim rather than a fraudster. You had to threaten it with a complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office before it took you seriously, admitted human error, promised to remove the markers and offered you £250.
That was the last you heard. You have no way of knowing if the fraud markers are still in place since those on the National Fraud Database are only visible to victims of fraud, and TSB had logged you as a perpetrator.