Bank24.ru (the asset of Probusinessbank and member of Life Group) has once again found itself in the middle of a customer-related scandal. A special message was posted on behalf of the bank’s customers on one of Yekaterinburg’s banking forums that actually accused the bank of blocking their legal entities accounts. The authors of the message don’t think it improbable that the bank might be involved in some dubious scheme. UralBusinessConsulting Agency of Information and Analytics quotes the message below:

‘Our company suffered last week due to these two banks’ actions that were both illegal and unjustified. The scheme is quite a simple one: the banks’ security system staff is cooperating with one of Sverdlovsk Region Economic Offense Department’s officers (Roman Sapozhnikov, in our case). Following this officer’s ungrounded verbal request, our Internet Bank system was blocked, whereas our lawyers’ official inquires as to the official grounds for such actions were left unanswered. Later on, the above-mentioned officer contacted the company himself and suggested that we should solve the problem with the help of a bribe,’ the message says.

‘Such practices are as old as the hills: first, the bank blocks all the account operations, asking the company’s director to produce a bunch of agreements. What they are really hoping for is that the firm is only a formal entity and no one will show up. In case the director does show up with all the papers, the Economic Offense Department’s officers join in the game and start accusing the business of fraud and other offenses. If the firm executives ask for official papers as a proof of instituted legal proceedings, the officers just keep on exerting pressure on them in the hope of finding something to accuse them of. At the same time, they hint strongly at the bribe as the easiest way out. So, instead of the bank’s adequate reaction, that is, unlocking the company’s accounts at once, what we get is a vague allusion to the siloviki. One cannot help coming to the conclusion that they have been colluding to make some profit out of illegal account blocking,’ the message goes on.

‘The law is on our side, so we expect the bank to react adequately in future. The only question left unanswered is whether these lawless actions come from just one person or result from a well-organized joined effort of the bank’s security system staff and the Economic Offense Department’s officers. We have already placed our complaint with the public prosecution authorities and are considering laying a claim against the banks with arbitration courts,’ the author of the message explains.

Bank24.ru has refused to provide any comments so far. UralBusinessConsulting Agency of Information and Analytics intends to keep its readers updated on the news.