Serious issues regarding mismatched names, bank fraud flags and law enforcement

[sam999]

Hi All,

This is a cautionary tale to everyone out there using mismatched names between eBay accounts and banks. I'm relieved to say this doesn't apply to me but it's a very serious concern and I'm very keen to hear if anyone else has had an issue like this before?

I have a friend with many mismatched accounts between ebay payee name and bank account registered owner. Some months ago when eBay did an automated quarterly payout they dumped a few thousand pounds into many Chase current accounts which triggered a manual review. When they saw the mismatched names they referred it to the police who seized all the funds. He was fortunate enough to be offered a disclaimer form to forfeit the funds without further investigation and advised to proceed by a solicitor, but the bank registered a CIFAS marker which completely destroys your financial life. He is now in a complete mess and isn't sure how he will manage to continue his mortgage when it's up for renewal or receive any money since CIFAS means every single bank account you own will eventually be closed!

Has anyone ever been questioned by a bank before regarding mismatched names? I'm very concerned about continuing this practice after this.

[mrsalexia]

How many thousands was it at once ?

[sam999]

About £4000 across a bunch of current accounts I think but he had 10k in the bank which they also took.

[itslouis2003]

If he could prove the funds were from his sales why would he forfeit the funds? He basically admitted guilt and has given himself a cifas. If it’s not identity theft, and he’s running the accounts and paying taxes then he can prove everything. Seems like there’s more to this..

[mrsalexia]

Originally Posted by sam999

About £4000 across a bunch of current accounts I think

Bunch is more than 10 ?

[sam999]

Originally Posted by itslouis2003

If he could prove the funds were from his sales why would he forfeit the funds? He basically admitted guilt and has given himself a cifas. If it’s not identity theft, and he’s running the accounts and paying taxes then he can prove everything. Seems like there’s more to this..

The solicitors told him selling other names constitutes money laundering which is what the police were investigating him for.

[itslouis2003]

Originally Posted by sam999

The solicitors told him selling other names constitutes money laundering which is what the police were investigating him for.

Should have been to business bank account, or have the accounts in his name.. eBay aren’t linking accounts just based off of names.. seems like a silly situation he’s gotten himself into. I’ve never not had an eBay account that’s not in my name.

Seems like he’s got a terrible solicitor. Money laundering is hiding the proceeds of crime, selling on a marketplace such as eBay in a different name and receiving payouts to a bank account in his real name and identity is not money laundering in the slightest. There’s more to this story than you are letting on.

Regarding the cifas marker I had some stupid friends in the past who gave permission to fraudsters when they were younger to “load” their bank accounts, and of course they ended up with a cifas for 6 years. However one of those friends wrote a long appeal to cifas and they managed to get it removed. So worth giving it a go..

[murdered_by_ebay]

I do not believe your story though. it is possible to open 10 current accounts on chase but that was certainly not because of 4000 pounds. if this happened the way you described it must have been a much bigger amount with no meaningful previous history of transactions on these accounts

additionally the quarterly dump part in your text also points to false info as it implies that the guy does not make regular withdrawals but amasses money on ebay for longer periods of time

all in all if this happened it was a lot more money , likely to the tune of tens of thousands of pounds received within a short period of time with little to no previous history

[mrsalexia]

Originally Posted by murdered_by_ebay

I do not believe your story though. it is possible to open 10 current accounts on chase but that was certainly not because of 4000 pounds. if this happened the way you described it must have been a much bigger amount with no meaningful previous history of transactions on these accounts

additionally the quarterly dump part in your text also points to false info as it implies that the guy does not make regular withdrawals but amasses money on ebay for longer periods of time

all in all if this happened it was a lot more money , likely to the tune of tens of thousands of pounds received within a short period of time with little to no previous history

I double

Manual review on bank would be only to very large ammmount of money flowing through it , or some other kind of fraud involving theft - usually only then police would be involved

On top of that that what bank sees as payment from ebay is basically ebay ltd paying so how they saw all the mismatched names ?

[phaz0rz]

Quarterly payout, as in one payout every 3 months? I thought the longest interval you can choose is one month and I've always seen even that as impractical.


If you're scared, can't you (they?) start using business accounts?

[agent006140]

Originally Posted by phaz0rz

Quarterly payout, as in one payout every 3 months? I thought the longest interval you can choose is one month and I've always seen even that as impractical.


If you're scared, can't you (they?) start using business accounts?

Did'nt Ebay want us to keep the fund in our Ebay account to buy things on Ebay?

[phaz0rz]

Originally Posted by agent006140

Did'nt Ebay want us to keep the fund in our Ebay account to buy things on Ebay?

Yes

[ft16]

I think when eBay first brought in Balance for private sellers in the UK they used to automatically transfer the un-spent balance every quarter, apparently they stopped this earlier this year.

Obviously banks can see the name on any incoming transfers, and having many current accounts with incoming transfers to different names would be a massive red flag, especially if they accounts didn't have normal transaction paterns like direct debits, standing orders, POS transactions, etc.

If the bank suspected money laundering they would have frozen the accounts and sent a SAR to the NCA, they wouldn't have told him they suspected money laundering, indeed it would be illegal for them to tell him.

More likely they suspected fraud and gave him a easy way out to close the accounts and sent the transfers back to ebay.

Either way he needs to google 'cifas solicitor' and take legal advice, its unlikely they'll remove the marker though.

[agent006140]

Originally Posted by mrsalexia

I double

Manual review on bank would be only to very large ammmount of money flowing through it , or some other kind of fraud involving theft - usually only then police would be involved

On top of that that what bank sees as payment from ebay is basically ebay ltd paying so how they saw all the mismatched names ?

Ebay has to give the bank the account number where the deposits should go/.besides the account number,there could be the account holder name as well (the one registered with Ebay).
Since it is easy to transpose numbers,adding the name will make sure it goes to the right account .
Dont forget some folks are still doing it the old fashion way,fill out a deposit slip-I am looking at a Chase BaNK DEPOSIT slip right now,it wants today date,customer name,and account number(the routing number is preprinted on the slip)

[sam999]

I'll try and answer a bunch of things here..

It was because the 4000 was paid by ebay throughout the middle of the night at stupid times across more than 10 of his current accounts that caused it to be flagged. He did periodically withdraw a few hundred at a time but nothing to the scale of 4k over 6-7 hours in the middle of the night. I think it was a combinations of the number of accounts and time of day that triggered it. Also he didn't use Chase for anything else, just eBay.

Of course the bank can see mismatched names, what you see on the bank statement is the merchant description but the payeee is in the name of the account.

Yes the bank did freeze his accounts for a few months while he had the police sending various letters from the economic crime investigation team. Strangely his ebay accounts weren't even suspended or frozen at all but the other big issue was the police requested eBay turn over all account info related to the payments and told him they could see the accounts were in other identities.

Believe me all of this is true, I have nothing to gain out of making up a wild story. I helped him look through high grade POCA solicitors while it was going on. I'm posting this now as using mismatched names has been making me increasingly anxious seeing what he continues to go though and it's hard to imagine nothing like this has ever happened to anyone here. I know people may not want to discuss it openly so please PM me if you do have something to share.

[Ebayorbust]

Yes the bank did freeze his accounts for a few months while he had the police sending various letters from the economic crime investigation team. Strangely his ebay accounts weren't even suspended or frozen at all but the other big issue was the police requested eBay turn over all account info related to the payments and told him they could see the accounts were in other identities.

Were the ebay accounts in "made up" details or was the information real?

And is the situation now resolved or are the police still investigating?

[Undertakers]

Over 10k is when eBay start asking for Identification. 4k I don't think anyone cares especially eBay

[kirkland]

Weren't we all using mismatched names in the pre-MP days? IIRC we were all using "pseudonyms" for PP and then having mismatched deposits directly into our bank account. Never had a problem in the states, maybe overseas it's different

Also I think there would be a difference btwn using a pseudonym and flat out copping someone's details and conducting transactions as if you are that entity (aka anything that can pass for identity theft, eg using the details of another living person). You def dont wanna go there

but why is this a question in 2026 when most of us are using our real identity with MPs anyway? Unless you are using a rando's personal information to make it through Ayten's verification which, yeah, could def get you in trouble. But it wouldn't be the "mismatched names" that got you in trouble, it would be the theft of another person's identity. Hope I understood the question correctly

[rsot]

The "over 10k" transaction likely triggered a manual review at the bank level which showed the stealth name of the incoming payment...and then they looked at all the incoming payments. Sad story to read about but I can believe it :(

kirkland makes a good point about MP being in the real name so the deposits wouldn't cause an issue...but still best to keep amounts less than 9999 in general...

[dsdominators]

Chase bank accounts were in his name
Ebay accounts werent.

Thats what I got from reading everything.
The story actually is very likely true.
Ive also had issues when I was using Chase with 10 sub-accounts. But difference is Chase warned me 3 times to stop using my Chase account for business practices and to switch to a business account before they just suspended my account.
But for them to involve police, there must have been a good reason for them to do that… Usually they are very tolerant…


I also had one account with funds seized by eBay(around 2k) for suspected money laundering a few months ago. It was eBay and not the bank…
Banks dont really seem to care if you dont withdraw too huge amounts.

[gerald]

Something about this isn’t ringing true.

For the mandatory quarterly payouts all to happen at exactly the same time means the ebay accounts must have all been created at the same time, literally at the same time. Possible I guess but extremely unlikely.

Beyond the accounts being frozen the Police need a court order to seize funds, this takes time, particularly given the court has to satisfy itself that there is a crime involved. This ain’t happening in a matter of months.

AFAIK, there is no such thing as a ‘Disclaimer Form’, surprised he had time to seek legal advice and a solicitor advised them to sign one citing money laundering! Get a new brief! Again, all within a matter of months. IMO…never happened.

Again, AFAIK, mismatched names isn’t technically identity theft and even then, some forms of identity theft aren’t even a criminal offence. Still smirking at the thought a ‘high grade’ solicitor told him it was money laundering.

As for the question of when his mortgage is up for renewal, I have no Idea what on earth you mean by this, who’s mortgage is ever ‘up for renewal’. Additionally, in the UK we have the right to a current account. Maybe not with Chase, but even the lowest of the low have the right to one.

And all this over a few measly grand….and we’re to believe that rather than applying their own internal security processes they got the Police involved. Nope, not having it.

But we don’t know you or your ‘friend’ so I guess it’s just another of those online chats that goes nowhere…for us anyway, but fun for a few days I guess.

[ft16]

No right to a bank account if you have a CIFAS marker for fraud and no chance with any major bank, he might be able to find a credit union or fintech account that doesn't check.

And by 'mortgage is up for renewal' they probably mean when whatever fixed rate deal they have ends, no need to worry though, he'll just pay the variable rate.