I thought I'd do a stand-in for Zippy this week. ;-)
Sometime last week, I transferred a not-insignificant amount of money to No.1 son's bank account (same bank as mine). (It's all to do with IHT ;-) )
All went well until he subsequently went shopping at Tesco, and had his card refused. No notice, despite the bank having his mobile number, though he said he realised what had happened, as a friend had recently had his account locked under fairly similar circumstances.
Luckily, he had some cash (enough to pay for his shopping) on him, and was later able to get his account unlocked.
It still seems odd practice to me to lock an account in those circumstances; if the bank are concerned about the incoming amount, why not just divert it to a holding account and notify the "intended" recipient? The transfer was from an account patently with the same surname.
And...
On Sunday, whilst I was logged in online to the joint account, SWMBO asked me to do a transfer into her own account. She likes to have a bit of "private" money so she can dispose of it on presents for me without my knowing. "£1000?" I asked, hopefully. "£100 will be enough", so I dutifully transferred it.
We both have online banking - I can see the joint account and the (shared) credit card account (which is in my name), she can see the joint account and her own current account. Accordingly, on Monday she tried to log in to her account to check the transfer had happened.
Online banking locked! (I could still login to mine, and see my accounts, one of which, as above, is shared between the two logins). Again, no notification by 'phone, the numbers for which are registered for fraud calls and one-time passcodes.
It took her best part of an hour and three transfers on the phone (to the fraud department) to get it all unlocked. No-one would be more forthcoming about the reason other than "there's currently a lot of fraud about")
WTF! This was a £100 transfer between accounts linked under the same person (give them any one of the account numbers when you call and they can see all the linked ones).
I can't say I'm particularly happy, but I'd be incandescent if I'd only had one bank account, they locked it and didn't inform me, I had no cash, and I was paying for 'phone calls to get it sorted.
Not very good!
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I'm having a lot of nonsense with Barclays at the moment, it's all KYC procedural stuff relating to a simple village society account which they have "restricted".
It doesn't work. I hate to say it but common sense would sometimes work better. Fraud and money laundering just increase. All the crooks have to do is follow the rules, produce the right bits of paper, and it all flies through.
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The estate of my late great aunt which gave rise to the watch thread still has around £2k of undistributed cash. A couple of pecuniary legacies to the Australian side of the family who, at the time of administration, I'd no contact details for plus other bobs/bits arising during administration.
As I did nothing for years the account was treated as dormant and the balance carried over to wherever Nat West keep such things.
I phoned on Monday and asked them to sort out returning the balance to me and they've sent me a form.
When I set up the estate account the 'clerk' at Bloomsbury Parrs branch insisted it had to be set up as a Business Account. The form they've sent me isa business form with all sorts of language that's not appropriate to how things are.
I'm filling it in as best I can and will send it with a covering letter. I fear it won't be straightforward....
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Although frustrating, I would rather the banks err very much on the side of caution than the reverse.
That sometimes it seems to make little sense may just be a price worth paying!
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>Although frustrating, I would rather the banks err very much on the
>side of caution than the reverse.
>That sometimes it seems to make little sense may just be a price worth
>paying!
If the system cannot distinguish between genuine suspicious activity and run-of-the-mill transfers between connected accounts or family members it is not fit for purpose and needs to be trashed.
You may be happy to accept this nonsense but I certainly 'aint. I'll be receiving a transfer on Friday from a US account and if Natwest play any silly games they'll be dealing with Mr Angry.
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...yeah. You can complain to that nice Mrs. Alison Rose...
Oh, hold on!
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..all joking apart, I agree with you Kevin. The linked account thing should be a giveaway, and the payment to my lad is one of many made in a similar manner over the years, and it certainly wasn't an amount that was out of (that recent) normal.
SWMBO received an eMail asking for feed back on her call centre experience, and the way things were handled.
She's vented her spleen.
I'm now expecting to be de-banked!
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Banking - Manatee
