Account Freezing Issue

[Imanojchoudhari]

I have previously accepted payments from unknown parties in my primary bank account, but I am now contemplating whether directing payments to a non-primary account would be a more suitable approach to prevent account freezing.?

 

[Mr. BeanMr. Bean is verified member.]

I have previously accepted payments from unknown parties in my primary bank account, but I am now contemplating whether directing payments to a non-primary account would be a more suitable approach to prevent account freezing.?

You are right. It is a good idea to have an alternative (SB/current) account. These days, we don't know when a bank freezes an account (for whatever reason), even if temporarily.

 

[EnthuCC]

You are right. It is a good idea to have an alternative (SB/current) account. These days, we don't know when a bank freezes an account (for whatever reason), even if temporarily.

If receiving UPI payments from random people would make bank freeze the accounts then almost all merchants would have experienced that from vegetable vendor to snacks vendor to any shopkeeper.

For these transactions a current account would be better.

However banks can't arbitrarily freeze accounts. I hope business and finance press would take up this issue soon. Banks can't bully the customers.

 

[Imanojchoudhari]

You are right. It is a good idea to have an alternative (SB/current) account. These days, we don't know when a bank freezes an account (for whatever reason), even if temporarily.

But I have been taking payments from unknown people in my primary bank account for the last 2-3 years. Till when will the risk of account freezing remain?

 

[akshayhs]

Your account only gets frozen mostly when an automated fraud detection system triggers a red flag in your transactions or your bank receives a request to do so by a certified authority. Otherwise, you should be fine. If the purpose of those payments are genuine, you don't need to worry about it. If you know they are unethical in nature, then stop it.

 

[Imanojchoudhari]

Your account only gets frozen mostly when an automated fraud detection system triggers a red flag in your transactions or your bank receives a request to do so by a certified authority. Otherwise, you should be fine. If the purpose of those payments are genuine, you don't need to worry about it. If you know they are unethical in nature, then stop it.

A lot of unknown payments have come into my account in the last 3-4 years. Now I am a bit tensed as to when and whom should I file a fraud report.

 

[Imanojchoudhari]

If receiving UPI payments from random people would make bank freeze the accounts then almost all merchants would have experienced that from vegetable vendor to snacks vendor to any shopkeeper.

For these transactions a current account would be better.

However banks can't arbitrarily freeze accounts. I hope business and finance press would take up this issue soon. Banks can't bully the customers.

If receiving UPI payments from random people would make bank freeze the accounts then almost all merchants would have experienced that from vegetable vendor to snacks vendor to any shopkeeper.

For these transactions a current account would be better.

However banks can't arbitrarily freeze accounts. I hope business and finance press would take up this issue soon. Banks can't bully the customers.

A lot of unknown upi imps rtgs payments have come into my account in the last 3-4 years. Now I am a bit tensed as to when and whom should I file a fraud report.

 

[akshayhs]

Are you implying you weren't expecting those payments but have been credited to your account despite no service from your end?

 

[Imanojchoudhari]

Are you implying you weren't expecting those payments but have been credited to your account despite no service from your end?

The payments were mine but the person who made the payment is unknown to me because he made the Transaction from different different persons bank accounts

For example

I had to take money from Dinesh, so Dinesh sent me money from Suresh, Ramesh and Jayesh's accounts

 

[dvader]

If receiving UPI payments from random people would make bank freeze the accounts then almost all merchants would have experienced that from vegetable vendor to snacks vendor to any shopkeeper.

For these transactions a current account would be better.

However banks can't arbitrarily freeze accounts. I hope business and finance press would take up this issue soon. Banks can't bully the customers.

Family in law enforcement. There is basically nothing against bank freezing your account. You can go to court and waste your money until supreme court to get a meaningful judgement. RBI will always side with the Bank on all freeze cases. Even if Banks freezw 1Cr accounts at random tomorrow given India's population it wont matter.

If you have a lot of corpus or connection you are mostly fine. Banks CAN and DO bully customers as far as freeze is concerned.

Being a common man, remember you are one Rs 10 Txn away from turning your life upside down.

Only people I have seen trust Law Enforcement/Administration/Judiciary are people who have nothing to do with them.

 

[dvader]

The payments were mine but the person who made the payment is unknown to me because he made the Transaction from different different persons bank accounts

For example

I had to take money from Dinesh, so Dinesh sent me money from Suresh, Ramesh and Jayesh's accounts

bhai ase txn cash m lia kro. He is being smart you on the other hand are being dumb.

Cash, Cash, Cash for shady people you shouldn't be dealing with.

 

[Mr. BeanMr. Bean is verified member.]

RBI will always side with the Bank on all freeze cases. Even if Banks freezw 1Cr accounts at random tomorrow given India's population it wont matter.

Totally agree. 💯

Recent (similar) case is NSDL Payment Bank freezing most (or all) of its accounts on Jan 1, 2025 (New Year Day!). People are still running from posts to pillars. Ref: https://x.com/search?q=@nsdlpb&f=live

In X(twitter), NSDLPB has closed its comments due to too many requests (even after nearly 2.5 months of blocking of accounts). Ref: https://x.com/nsdlpb

RBI has done nothing to unblock the accounts. RBIO paid Rs.500 compensation for everyone who made a formal complaint for the delay to do vKYC, though. For the first days, X page of NSDLPB was sickening to see people crying, begging, etc. Even the current accounts in collaboration with Cheqbook were blocked. True madness, it was.

 

[dvader]

Totally agree. 💯

Recent (similar) case is NSDL Payment Bank freezing most (or all) of its accounts on Jan 1, 2025 (New Year Day!). People are still running from posts to pillars. Ref: https://x.com/search?q=@nsdlpb&f=live

In X(twitter), NSDLPB has closed its comments due to too many requests (even after nearly 2.5 months of blocking of accounts). Ref: https://x.com/nsdlpb

RBI has done nothing to unblock the accounts. RBIO paid Rs.500 compensation for everyone who made a formal complaint for the delay to do vKYC, though. For the first days, X page of NSDLPB was sickening to see people crying, begging, etc. Even the current accounts in collaboration with Cheqbook were blocked. True madness, it was.

No amount of regulation, law, enforcement, goodwill, or hard work, (ANYTHING IN THE WORLD), will protect you from incompetence and malice. NSDL might be facing some cash problems so they go ahead and block the money, this will increase their liquidity ratio. This is a major flaw with RBI, RBI can be rendered incompetent just with the number of complaints. I have been saying this for the past decade, you don't need corruption to destroy RBI, just reduce the head count and banks can destroy the whole nation in 24 hours.

India has long viewed it's instituion such as RBI, CBI, Supreme Court etc as sacred. You can replace Indian Judiciary with monkeys and they would do a better job (I am not speaking figuratively). And as for RBI, I am waiting for a party kept out of power for decades to take control and use RBI as a weapon to suck money out of Indians. That day comes closer with each passing day. This has nothing to do with a party. It's the way of democracy. India is just a bit behind the world. Look how Japanese Central Bank, destoryed a japanese ecomony once bigger than that of the USA. Look how the Federal Reserve kept destroying Americans after the 2008 recession. A temporary zero interest policy became the norm for 15 years.

 

[maheshspanicker]

The freezing syndrome is more with some banks than others. I never faced any issue with my Federal Bank and PNB account and I have been using those for years. IDFC First on the other hand came Freezing down within a month! And I didn't get any 3rd party transactions in, when I needed money in their account, just used UPI to transfer from my own account. Had to go to the branch, show them the statement of that account for them to stop the nonsense. Both their CC and the BM acknowledged that their algorithm has been creating this issue, and I would be better off using IMPS or NEFT to even transfer money between my own accounts... Ridiculous, but that's what it is!
I heard IndusInd, particularly the Indie accounts, are also vulnerable to Freeze Syndrome. So haven't yet upgraded to megastar, don't want 50000 to be stuck for no reason. Will use it for a while and see how it goes.

 

[EnthuCC]

Family in law enforcement. There is basically nothing against bank freezing your account. You can go to court and waste your money until supreme court to get a meaningful judgement. RBI will always side with the Bank on all freeze cases. Even if Banks freezw 1Cr accounts at random tomorrow given India's population it wont matter.

If you have a lot of corpus or connection you are mostly fine. Banks CAN and DO bully customers as far as freeze is concerned.

Being a common man, remember you are one Rs 10 Txn away from turning your life upside down.

Only people I have seen trust Law Enforcement/Administration/Judiciary are people who have nothing to do with them.

In situation like that the depositor can simply close the account and transfer money to other account right?
And these cases happen only with UPI transactions?

Also I saw this video few days ago. I don't know the context of the case. Do you happen to know the background of it?

 

[Mr. BeanMr. Bean is verified member.]

In situation like that the depositor can simply close the account and transfer money to other account right?

Yes. That's the fastest, easiest and simplest way to get the funds back. We still need an alternative bank account in such cases. That's the whole point of OP.

In NSDL Payment Bank case, a lot of people closed the account (including @Abhishek012 ), instead of waiting for video KYC (that can only be initiated by NSDLPB). Closing the account was responded and processed (faster).