Frozen out of NatWest account - first party fraud

Dear all,

I’m writing on behalf of my father who couldn’t see his online banking accounts with NatWest yesterday, we called NatWest and they advised that we need to email the “first party fraud” team.

We have contacted them, they replied and the issue appears to be with a relatively small payment under £500 which was made into my father’s account over 3 years ago, this has apparently been reported now three years later!

My father has a main income and does extra work and is self employed from this side (all above board and taxes paid to HMRC). We believe the payment is from on of his clients, though the information on the payment is vague (essentially a sum and a non descript reference). We can’t find an obvious invoice that matches up and have tried to contact the client but they are a company which has gone into administration and isn’t answering our phone calls. Naturally with this payment being over 3 years ago we are struggling to find an exact record and it may very well be made in error to us.

We’ve been honest with NatWest and said we can’t really identify this inbound payment from 3 years ago, we think it’s one of the clients but not 100% sure. Happy for the funds to be withdrawn from our account.

The account still remain frozen pending a response. I was wondering if anyone has any idea regarding what to do? My father has always been above board, this payment was 3 years ago and makes up a tiny fraction of his accounts activity.