‘Kafkaesque’: bank blocks cash transfer, saying it could be an AI scam

An Edinburgh academic has accused Starling bank’s fraud team of behaving like officers in a police state after they repeatedly refused to allow him to send a €15,000 (£12,800) payment to a friend in Austria, then froze his account when he complained about their “absurd demands”.
John MacInnes, a professor emeritus of sociology and statistics, says he has been left astonished by his treatment by staff at the challenger bank.
Staff at one point, he says, demanded to see correspondence between the person to whom he was trying to make the transfer and her accountant, and refused to release the money unless he produced it.
While the banks tread a difficult line when it comes to such payments, his case shows the absurd lengths to which some are now going to prevent fraud for which they can be held responsible.
MacInnes’s “crime” was to try to send money to a friend he and his wife have known for more than 20 years to cover a cashflow problem she was experiencing.
Having had several telephone calls to establish it was actually her asking for help, he set up the online payment last Sunday from the Starling account he has held for many years. The bank immediately blocked the payment as suspicious.
He says he understands that banks have had huge fraud problems, and was happy to explain the circumstances and to reassure Starling that he knew what he was doing, but was not prepared for what happened next.
“Conversations with their fraud team by phone and text over a period of several hours became progressively more Kafkaesque, including the bizarre suggestion that Zoom conversations with my friend could have been generated by scammers using AI,” he says.
“When I eventually managed to speak to a person, he candidly admitted that he was sure that no scam was involved, but still demanded to see my Austrian’s friend’s tax bill, and past examples of our correspondence.”
When he told the bank that he considered its demands a gross invasion of both his and his friend’s privacy (and likely data rules) and totally disproportionate in the circumstances, he says it still refused to transfer the money. The staff could have told him the payment was at his own risk, but wouldn’t.
The final indignity came when he said he was so fed up with his treatment that he wished to close his account: the bank announced it had shut him out of it.
“They said they had blocked it because there would be a risk that I would then make the transfer by other means. It was completely mad,” he says.
“I completely understand that banks have a duty to vet payments for money laundering and scamming, but I feel the demand to share personal correspondence to prove that someone I say is my friend smacks more of the Stasi than due diligence.”
Only after Guardian Money’s intervention was the account unblocked and the payment allowed to proceed. A Starling spokesperson says that while the bank has a duty to protect customers from fraud, it accepts it went too far.
“When we see a payment supported by a narrative commonly associated with romance scams, we seek additional information from the customer to support verification that this does not relate to fraud,” they say.
“We accept that, having warned him, we went too far in the information we requested he supply to us. We are very sorry. We have unfrozen his account with immediate effect so that he can make the payment or close his account. We are conducting a thorough investigation of his complaint and we will ensure that we use any findings to improve our processes and procedures for other customers.”