Lily Beweley-West recently assisted an international client, Mr. A, with the removal of a CIFAS fraud marker from his credit file. The marker was preventing him from opening a UK bank account and harming his employment prospects. It was quickly removed following and investigation by Lily, who submitted written representations and evidence to CIFAS absolving the client of suspicion.

Unfortunately, the client had his debit card stolen in March 2022. Revolut closed his account shortly after. When he then tried to open a new bank account elsewhere, he was informed that this was not possible due to a CIFAS fraud marker being present on his credit file. He was unable to open an account with any bank in the UK and as such could not work or be paid in the country.

The client approached our London Business Crime team for assistance based on our previous experience of dealing with such matters. The team have developed a staged process to maximise the chances of removing an adverse marker quickly and cost-effectively, allowing our clients to move on with their lives following an account closure or other action by their bank.

Lily drafted an initial complaint to the banking services provider, but received a very limited ‘final’ response. Notably, the client could not view his transaction history as this was only available via the Revolut app, which the client no longer could access. This made it difficult to ascertain what prompted the provider to shut the account in the first place or for the client to effectively rebut this. Lily therefore submitted a data subject access request to obtain this information.

Lily quickly identified a number of suspicious cash withdrawals that likely led to the account closure and established that the client was not even in the country at the time. In turn, she submitted a carefully drafted request to CIFAS to review the marker and enclosed supportive evidence to show that it could not have been the client who made the withdrawals. Within three working days, CIFAS responded to confirm that they had raised it with the provider, and the marker had been removed with immediate effect.

Mr A was obviously thrilled with the result, which allowed him to open a new bank account and return to work in the UK.