ePayments or FCA: who is to blame for the fact that people have not been able to access their money for almost 5 months?
February 11, 2020 – this very date is associated with an extremely unpleasant event for ePayments customers: the accounts of all users of this payment system got blocked.
What happened?
ePayments posted the following message on its homepage (www.epayments.com):
«On the February 11, 2020 ePayments Systems Limited (‘ePayments’) agreed with the Financial Conduct Authority (‘FCA’) to suspend all activity on its customer accounts. This decision was taken following a review, by the FCA, of ePayments anti-money laundering systems and controls, which identified weakness that required remediation.»
In a nutshell, the British Regulator that controls ePayments activities (i.e, the FCA – Financial Conduct Authority – www.fca.org.uk) has detected certain problems in the AML (Money Laundering) ePayments control system. As a result of which, a mutual decision was made to temporarily freeze the accounts of all users until the identified issues were eliminated.
How long will it last?
There is no answer to this question! FCA didn’t set a deadline for resolving the issues identified. Customers are forced to be in the dark and just wait. However, the main question is how much longer do we have to wait? Weeks, months, years..?
In addition, needless to say that 2020 has been a tough year: because of the COVID-19 pandemic, people faced with many financial problems. At this stage, frozen money on ePayments accounts is simply vital for many people (without exaggeration)!
What about those who were left without money in these volatile times?
ePayments customers have already addressed various organizations: «The Financial Regulators Complaints Commissioner» (www.frccommissioner.org.uk), «Financial Ombudsman» (www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk), «Action Fraud» (www.actionfraud.police.uk), «National Crime Agency» (www.nationalcrimeagency.gov.uk) and others. They also organized a web page where they describe the current situation – www.epaymentsreviews.com (there is also a Russian version – www.epaymentsreviews.com/ru/).
However, no answers to the main questions have yet been received!
Where else should ePayments customers, who are left without means of subsistence, appeal just to be heard? Why did the Wirecard block (which also has FCA as the regulatory company) last only a few days (www.fca.org.uk/news/news-stories/requirements-imposed-wirecard-authorisation), but ePayments users have been waiting for almost half a year?
We realize that the situation with ePayments can be very complicated. And eliminating such issues can be a lengthy process. However, stop keeping us in the dark and give us more information! Please!
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Any help in solving this situation (legal services, mass media publications, advice from personal experience in such matters, etc.) would be very appreciated. If you think you can help, please write to info@epaymentsreviews.com or leave a comment on www.epaymentsreviews.com
