This was a saga and a half. I was contacted by forecourt operator Stanley Kydd who runs Mace Portavogie in County Down.
He wrote: “I have been having a horrendous time with Worldpay in the fact that, when they discovered that we had changed from a partnership to a Ltd company (in 2009), because we hadn’t notified them they have now been withholding all my payments for the last 28 days which amounts to over £150k.”
Now that is a helluva lot of money.
They asked for some documentation and Stanley supplied it but he adds:”They are so slow it is unbelievable. Back in 2009 it was possible to change from a partnership to a Ltd company and retain your existing bank account number hence the issue did not flag up.
“Despite the fact that they have been paying into the original bank account for the past 17 years and when they decide to eventually release the funds will continue to pay into the same account.
“I find it incredible that they have the power to hold back such a huge amount of funds.”
Naturally, Stanley checked his account daily and complained often. At one point he told me he was on the phone to Worldpay explaining how difficult a position they had placed him in as he was about to run out of funds and they were putting his business in danger. He referred to the Post Office Horizon scandal where someone had actually stood in front of a bus due to the pressure.
“They had the power to release the funds but they decided to contact the Police and the local Police arrived in a police car and questioned me to to determine if I was suicidal!”
I wrote to Worldpay and told them that I had advised Stanley to take the case to the Financial Ombudsman.
Stanley said: “I will be contacting the Ombudsman, however from what I am led to believe it could take months before they look at the complaint meanwhile I am deprived of a working capital of over £150,000 and have no way of fighting their decision to withhold the funds.”
And he added: “I was with my MP today and he spoke to Worldpay and relayed how disappointed he was with them regarding my issues and he assured them if Parliament was not in recess that he would have raised it in the House of Commons and if the funds are not transferred within 48 hours he will take the appropriate action to have the matter highlighted.”
Worldpay’s ‘response’ to my request was: “We have generated a reference to help us track your query. Your incident number is 240731-000260 (please quote this number on any future communication with us relating to this matter).
“We aim to respond to your query within the next working day.” They didn’t – and I remember getting the same response from them when I last contacted Worldpay on behalf of another retailer.
Then I had the bright idea of recommending to Stanley that he should contact BBC 4’s Money Box radio programme. They often get really good results even when the programme is still on air.
Meanwhile two things happened. Stanley managed to transfer to Elavon which no doubt recognised the fact that it would never be at risk of Stanley ever owing them money – just as Worldpay hadn’t been at risk. A relieved Stanley said “at least now I have funds coming into my bank account”.
He then reported: “I have just had another 30 minute phone call with Worldpay and they have confirmed that they have had all the required documentation since the 17th July but cannot give a date as to when they will be in a position to have the verification completed therefore the funds cannot be released.
“I got the impression from the call handler that as I had served notice to close my account that it could be up to 60 days before this might be resolved.”
But then finally he got a response from Worldpay to his previous formal complaint.
They said: “Worldpay is required to comply with the Money Laundering Regulations 2017 (MLR) which means that we are obliged, at certain times, to carry out checks on existing customers.
“We use online resources such as Experian and Companies House to confirm details of our customers whenever possible. However, in some cases we must ask our customers to supply information.
“Your agreement with Worldpay is constituted of and governed by, among other things, the merchant services agreement terms & conditions.”
They pointed to clause 3.8 which says:
‘3.8. Customer Due Diligence: You will comply promptly with all requests for information that we make for the purpose of meeting our operational and legal requirements to carry out Customer Due Diligence in relation to you (including providing personal information about your directors and beneficial owners).’
“I need to stress that we’ve asked you to provide information as a matter of necessity rather than choice. You are a valued customer and I sincerely hope that following this explanation of our actions, you now understand that we do not intend to cause you any frustration and you now feel able to comply with our requests.
“While I’m unable to agree that Worldpay has, in any way, acted improperly or unfairly when making our request for information, I have found that the service level you’ve received has been of a lower quality than expected. With that being the case and in acknowledgement of the inconvenience you’ve experienced as a result, I’ve been able to uphold your complaint.
“I would like to offer my sincere apologies, on behalf of Worldpay, for the inconvenience you’ve experienced to date and assure you that this is something I will be feeding back directly to the Customer Verification Team.
“Moving forward, I can see that your due diligence request is now closed and I can confirm the divert on your account has been removed, the funds totalling £196,071.88 will credit the bank account we hold on file for you by close of business today.”
Worldpay assumed that the situation had been resolved to Stanley’s satisfaction which got a furious response from him.
“To say that I am shell shocked would be a gross understatement in regards to your assumption that this goes anywhere close to resolving my complaint. On reflection you should sit down and imagine that if you were to ever find yourself in my position and you had to encounter what I have been through then you might even for a split second realise how I have felt in your handling of this matter. You must take into account that someone in Worldpay was aware of the level of stress this was causing due to the fact that they reported to the Police that they thought I was feeling suicidal which prompted a visit from the local station yet that nameless/faceless person made no attempt whatsoever to even complete the verification in a reasonable time.
“The reason I say this is the fact that you have been withholding funds to the total of £196,071.88 and it has taken nearly four weeks to complete the simplest of verifications bearing in mind that you have been paying into the same bank account for 17 years and for you to in anyway try and excuse or justify the fact it took this length of time is absolutely ridiculous.
“Due to your actions and unwarranted delays you put a small business in danger of going out of business with no thought whatsoever for the employees, directors, suppliers or customers. If I was opening a new account with you today and provided all the documentation that I have supplied then I have no doubt that I would be up and running within three days. So it’s difficult to understand how my verification took nearly four weeks from the time all the required documents had been supplied considering we have been a customer for 17 years.”
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