cybercrime causes bank account freeze after localbitcoins trades

Hey everyone, A few days back, my account with the State Bank of India got frozen with a lien marked 999999. I spoke to my branch manager, and he said the account is on hold because of cybercrime linked to some fraudulent activity. They can't lift the hold until the investigation is wrapped up. I traded on localbitcoins a couple of months ago, but all my trades were with verified users who had over a thousand trades and positive reviews. Has anyone else dealt with this kind of problem? Is there any way to resolve it and get my bank account back? I really didn't expect this issue, especially since I only traded with top-rated profiles. Thanks!

In this case, you can only wait for the investigation to be resolved. I would like to tell you that if you have not done anything wrong, don't worry. But I would be worried if I had not done anything wrong and my account was frozen.

There is no way to recover your bank account, unless the only one is the local bank concerned. If you have contacted your local bank manager, follow as he says, wait, after everything is safe. Because the case that you experienced occurred in India, at least you can ask a little information about your case that made this topic: Solution for people with money stuck on zebpay  maybe he at least has a solution. Or you can contact: edgycorner, and tell what you are experiencing at this time, hopefully he can help you solve this problem.

Ask further details from your bank and particularly ask for the transactions which are market into lien (charge back) and crisis check with the receipts of your LocalBitcoins to find which transaction and buyer claimed the charge back. If it is from LBC buyer then just ask the LBC support to block the trader until your issue got resolved.

Yes. Waiting for the update from bank. Its really pathetic without asking or informing before suspending bank account.  I have all the receipts and history of local bitcoin chat. If someone asked me amount it i will handover and easily find the scammer who did this. Better use zebpay or unocoin. They haven't gave any informations about transactions. Id they provide details, i can easily find that scammer's lbc account and report the authorities and lbc team.

Is this holiday season? They why it takes too long to get those details, just make them to hurry the thing to else the scammer might jump to another account and the previous account may not have anything to left on localbitcoin. If they are not giving any details the proceed for account closure in that case they have to return any hold amount as well.

Bank manager said that he don't have any idea about transaction details. No one called from cyber police regarding same. So only option is to wait for a call from them or for next update from bank. I have read several forums that cyber police freeze updates and no followups after that. In India things are pretty slow.

AFAIK, cyber frauds will be notified to the bank and the bank can only freeze the accounts, so here police cannot freeze your bank account directly and it couldn't happen without the knowledge of bank.Try to contact with higher official and also their support system if it is available. Better contact a legal advisor in your country to get better advice regarding how to handle this issue.

Nowhere on this planet will the police investigating fraud tell you what is wrong with your account and what transactions are involved before the end of the investigation. For example, here banks are actually forced to not give out any information, anyone telling their clients any bit of information that was requested by the police also faces charges. Exactly! Contacting the bank and trying to get details about why this happened might be a waste of time when they unblock your account (if!) you will be notified, contacting the police will also be probably a waste of time as they will not give you any details nor they will need any statement from you as they would have asked you already. Unfortunately, at this point, you're basically out of options. Hope you don't have all your money stuck with that bank account.

File an RTI to the bank and cyber cell if you do not get a response from them. That would help you get clarification from bank or from cyber cell about which transaction went bad. Inform LBC if you haven't done so already and tell them you're waiting for the information of the transaction. Did you took receipt from the buyers? Did you made sure that the person you received money from is the same person with whom you were dealing with on LBC? Did you download your e-statement prior to the seize? If you did, check it and match the person's name you dealt with and see if you can find a transaction that does not matches the trader from LBC. Make a list of people with who you have traded with. Check to see if their phone numbers are listed on their profiles. Take screenshots of every trade you had there. If you have done nothing wrong then you have nothing to worry about. But your money might get held for a long time. And you might have to pay back whatever sum was defrauded for and a fine too. And last but not the least, hire a good lawyer.

But seizing funds without enough proof is also against the law right, I am not sure how a bank cannot say which of your transaction got charged back!

Depends on the country. In the US, civil forfeiture laws not only DO allow seizure of assets on suspicion of a crime but also in many states DO NOT require that assets be returned if investigations end without prosecution! While fairly rare, there are numerous instances of that happening here in the US every year. When it does happen the only recourse is to file a civil suit against the authorities involved to recover the assets. Because the rules of evidence in civil suits are far more loose regarding what is allowed or not allowed the outcome of that is not always in your favor...

Wow, this sounds really awful. If I were wrongly accused of something that I haven't done concerning my properties and whatever the hell I did with it and it happens on a state where this law applies, I would be pissed big time and just move my shit out of that mess. That's robbery in broad daylight if they haven't returned any seized assets that were proved to be clean. As for OP, one logical course of action here is doing nothing and just wait for the development of this investigation. Requesting certain information--this case what transactions are under investigation--under RTI on the bank which froze your account is also a good thing, though with the way how the bank and the law enforcement is acting on the matter, getting their cooperation can prove to be very tricky.

It's not up to the bank to decide if there are proofs or not for an account to be frozen or suspended in this case. Once a police department finds or is tipped of something unusual happening, a person involved in what they think is a suspicious activity they will investigate and take this matter over a prosecutor, if he decides there are enough proof he informs the bank and the bank has nothing else to do than obey. As for disclosure of evidence in such a case, most countries have laws against it. At this point the bank can't help the OP, his the only chance is to try and speed up his process, by requesting a meeting with his local branch of the police or try to contact the financial ombudsman in order to verify if his account is indeed frozen following a police request and is not a stupid mistake.

I agree 100%. Folks under investigation who immediately go on the offensive are just putting a bigger target on their back. Assuming that you have done nothing wrong or even questionable, showing that you are not only willing but also eager to assist the investigation is always a good thing.

Somehow managed to get email from branch manager and emailed twice to the police station registered that case. Its far from my place. No one replied to my email and i clearly specified i'm willing to provide all details of transactions from and to my account. Also called to their number and provided account details. The sad fact is they don't even talk english or no one know in their office.  Somehow managed to inform about the issue and their reply was not overwhelming and just casual as we will check. Just made an enquiry regarding same to an advocate and he told its usually happen anytime in India . He know tons of guy lost their account while doing business and no followup from anyone after blocking accounts.

how much money have you moved into your account? Generally, these types of cases only happen when the person has exhausted the annual limit stipulated by the central bank, commercial banks are unlikely to be scrutinizing each customer's account unless they are customers who move a lot of money. In your case I recommend that you look for a bank employee who is known to you (someone who is trustworthy) to get into your bank account and tell you exactly what is happening with your bank account. If you do not have any bank employee who is your friend or acquaintance to help you then you will hardly have help. Another suggestion would be that you try to get in direct contact with the bank's headquarters and not with the branches localbitcoin is full of scammers who sell stolen bitcoin, so don't be thinking that you're dealing with some super honest website. banks are a nightmare

Well this is just a sad case, then, as even the RTI wouldn't really do much if they are behaving this way, outright uncooperative and unfair. I wouldn't bet too much on this problem to get resolved in the shortest time possible not unless this gets wide coverage and people are made aware of how scummy and how ineffective their investigation process is. I've dug deeper on how investigations such as this happens on India, and most of the time banks are just following the directives of the law enforcement and they pretty much don't have any say on these kinds of investigation.

If the amount left in your account before locking is huge then I would advice you to proceed legal actions then you can know the exact reasons or it may take years to any actions regarding your cases in India in my opinion.

Firstly please let us know the account names with whom you had traded in last couple of months. So that we can avoid trading with them. Secondly, if the account is freezed for investigation by the police, then the chance is very little that you will get back your account ever in your life! So if the amount is small, it's better to forget about it. Otherwise, hire a lawyer and file a court case as well as involve consumer protection forum into that. That's the only way you will get back your account.