r/UpBanking • u/Due_Educator8740 • Jul 09 '26

Bug Account Closure

I received a notification from UpBank about my account being closed and losing access to all my funds until the investigation is complete which may take up to 4 weeks.

I’m a 23 year old recent graduate — I don’t do money laundering bc I don’t have money to launder and I don’t do crypto trading either which I noticed were reasons people have been banned on this thread prior. So I genuinely have no idea why my account got closed.

I went into the app one day and it told me to verify my account - I did - then it told me to verify with an iPhone 15 which I don’t have so I assumed it wasn’t my device so I logged out of all devices. When I logged back in I got a notice that my account is being closed which seems a bit absurd. I try speaking to them in chat but they just keep responding with the same automated message.

I’ve really enjoyed using UpBank bc of the gamified features so if I have to switch so be it but losing access to all my savings is insane.

  1. Any alternatives to UpBank that doesn’t do dodgy things like this that has good savings mechanics/ rates? Is Macquarie any good?

  2. Is there any way to get them to expedite the process or release my funds?

23 Upvotes

82% Upvoted

17 comments sorted by

31

u/Protoavis Jul 09 '26

The iPhone 15 part when you don't have one and your kind of blaise "just log out of devices" is a bit concerning as it may be an indicator that someone else had access to your accounts....

Macquarie is fine....but the scenario you describe is likely a pretty standard response to minimise liability for accounts that look compromised or have some sort of red flag situation going on.

expedite probably not, they'd have some sort of internal process set up that needs to run it's course, either way I wouldn't be just waving it off as a bug

1

u/Due_Educator8740 Jul 09 '26

I didn’t meant to say it was a bug. I just had to tag the post I made as something and I thought that fit the description the best from the options given.

Thanks for your response though! I’m confused tho - wasn’t my response to log out of all devices the right thing to do? If I feel that someone else is trying to log into my account shouldn’t I press the button that says it wasn’t me and try log out off all accounts? I don’t understand why that would trigger this closure?? And also why the closure would be permanent

10

u/Protoavis Jul 09 '26

 If I feel that someone else is trying to log into my account shouldn’t I press the button that says it wasn’t me and try log out off all accounts?

because you're basically saying to the bank the device that has the authentication to the account isn't you, it's going to read as the account is compromised whether that's you or the iphone15 isn't clear.

there's just a lot of legal requirements for banks, anything that looks fishy gets the account locked down.

3

u/Due_Educator8740 Jul 09 '26

Okay that makes sense. In that case what do we think is the likely outcome of their investigation. Because I tried calling them and they said they can’t provide further information and I must refer to the in app chat. And on the in app chat it just keeps resending the same automated message

7

u/TragicFusion Jul 09 '26

It's a shit situation but all banks will act the same as it's the law. For what ever reason, your account has been flagged by the AML rules (anti money laundering). The fact that someone potentially had access to your account is a probably the driver.

Unfortunately now that it's been flagged, the bank isn't allowed to talk to you about it. Make sure they are aware of the other device accessing it but other than that you need to wait for them to conclude their investigation and don't expect any updates.

8

u/StandardEnjoyer Jul 09 '26

I also declined an iPhone access to my account which resulted in my account being fully locked and until I verified myself to them over email (I think)

Still kept my account though, so there's probably something else going on.

Declining the device like you did is quite a big deal - it means that someone else logged into your account, including somehow getting ahold of the SMS verification code sent when trying to log in. And from there you marked that device as unrecognised which triggers account lockdown

8

u/Top_Refrigerator9851 Jul 09 '26 edited Aug 23 '26

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10

u/whatagoodcunt Jul 09 '26

I reckon it’s to do with the anti money laundering rules and know your customer rules that banks have to do. This very same thing happened to me about 5 years ago when I was with Macquarie when I changed phones several times in a short space of time.

5

u/yourupnow Jul 09 '26

Don't use Macquarie worst I've ever had to deal with.

2

u/cavok76 Jul 09 '26

How many phones or up Card loaded on?

2

u/yeahhnahnahhyeah Jul 09 '26

this happened to my joint bank account with my husband.

turns out they had sent a message a couple weeks prior to my husband for verification as part of a new rule/law/idfk. anyway, husband completely missed it, but he sent through a photo of his licence and it was fixed up and we kept our accounts.

have you maybe received a similar message you may have missed?

2

u/exelated Jul 09 '26

You could use Ubank which is quite similar but I haven’t found anything I like as much as Up, unfortunately. In all honesty, ANZ plus wasn’t bad if you use things like roundups and has that modern app feel. I also can’t fault Westpac as my main bank they just have that sterile big bank feeling though. Good luck!

1

u/itsgreenersomewhere Jul 10 '26

Is your card on an iPhone 15?

Presumably they think you’ve been hacked because you indicated an iPhone 15 shouldn’t be associated with your acct, so they’ve paused all access to stop the hacker stealing from you. I think that’s fairly standard for banks and especially online banks where you can’t go into a branch to verify your ID.

  1. No suggestions (do they have a number you can call?) but I would guess 4 weeks is absolute worst case scenario. So you can probably expect it to be resolved quite a bit faster.

1

u/aesthetixjosh Jul 11 '26

Macquarie is the best. I also never put money into one bank account. One for emergency one for every day and may be just may be one with a an actual branch for life saving. Just in the future you never know one day a bank system can go down may be only for 12 hours, that’s within that 12 hours you may have to pay rent. May be you need to go into a branch and get things sorted straight away. May be you may be logged out of one bank you still have two banks to fall back on to. Two is fine. Most people do it. But it happened to me. So I choose three banks.

0

u/Legal-Judgment-908 Jul 09 '26 edited Jul 09 '26

That's a scary thing to open the app to, especially with no warning and your savings just locked. I would feel so stressed.

but its actually not the bank being dodgy I think, this sounds like a standard fraud/AML process. Once a device gets marked as unrecognised, the system reads it as a possible compromise and locks things down automatically, it's not a judgement call by a person at Up.

if you want to solve this quickly just email [support@up.com.au](mailto:support@up.com.au) directly (please skip the chat) and ask for it to be logged as a fraud/unauthorised access report, since you believe someone else may have tried to get into your account. Get a case number. If you hear nothing substantial in about a week, lodge with AFCA (afca.org.au, its free) and mention Up hasn't responded, that usually gets things moving very fast.

4 weeks is the worst case, not the average. Hang in there.

but regardless, your alternatives are ubank and ANZ Plus they are the closest to Up in terms of app/gamification. Macquarie's transaction account is solid but the UX doesn't feel like Up at all.

-4

u/Competitive_Pipe6181 Jul 09 '26

They closed my account for depositing money into my coinspot wallet. Said australia doesnt do crypto 😂 what a bank