Halifax faster payments - nearly there?

mm79_2

Hi Enaj - I've had exactly the same problem with Halifax since the BH weekend. I'm thoroughly frustrated with them - they even used the same excuse on the phone 'it must be the receiving bank' - I know it's not, as the receiving bank (Natwest in my case) has happily been receiving faster payments from another account I have. I find it unacceptable for this service to be unavailable for so long, and then it seems to have the blame shifted elsewhere!

veloo

blimey! i thought it was just me. did a google search, and there seems to be loads of problems with halifax since many years. no wonder that bank is in such a bad mess. this particular thread started >2yrs ago. and i am having the exact same problems even now.

i was sold their current account earlier this week. online service is a sham. agents try to skirt around any problems, rather than admit that their is a problem, and they are aware of it. blaming the customers for doing it wrong only works, if the customers haven't been with any other bank.

i'm so frustrated, that i have given up. calling their call centre is no use either. apparently, i should call their 0845 number (premium rate from my mobile) for faster service than their online website. one of the call agents said that their FPS limit is a trade secret!!! :-?

ps: saynoto0870 is a boon for everyone, apart from scam businesses trying to mint money from their unsuspecting customers in an underhand way.

joolsybools

Partner also having problems with it today, trying to transfer something to me (Barclays) using his online banking a few minutes ago and told the payment will not be taken from his account till Monday !!!!!!! It said something along the lines that the bank wasn't able to do it before Monday!!!! Wan kers!

daisy01_2

moominyak wrote: »

Is it me, or are the FPs from HBOS "selective"?

I've sent a few to various banks (A&L, Tesco, Barclays) with no problems...
then yesterday I tried to send one to A&L again and I got the old "unfortunately..blah blah" message.

Thought perhaps it was because it was for an odd amount, but even a flat tenner wouldn't work.

I thought this FP lark was meant to be 24/7, but it seems in my case it's whenever HBOS feel like it (and more often than not, they don't!) :rolleyes:

Anybody know what the actual criteria are for HBOS FPs to work (eg must be done before 11am or something)?

Hi, time is not an issue on this one - if it can be done it will be sent and received within 2 hrs. The problem is that although HBOS is on the faster pmt systems it requires the recipient bank, utility co. etc to also be on it - at the moment not everyone is and so the error message will come up for it to be sent as your usual 'Standing Order'. More and more places are subscribing to the FP service though so in time you might find that ones that cant be done now will be avail in time to come!

Hope this helps -

Mikeyorks

daisy01 wrote: »

Hope this helps -

Not a lot, I suspect? As the post you're replying to is 2 years 2 months old ........ and was nothing to do with SOs.

Milarky

Just to update anyone reading this thread (early 2011).

Faster Payments from Halifax work pretty [STRIKE]well[/STRIKE] consistently. There does seem to be a 'per account' daily restriction of £2500 for outward payments currently. Single payments seem capped at £1000, but repeated payments below this limit which decrease successively (eg £999, then £998, then £503) permit the account limit to be reached quite rapidly.

I have also found that multiple payments allowed thereafter but are much smaller (£190, it seems - not '£195' or '£200') - upto about 15 such payments.

Changing accounts once the on screen message changes seems to work sometimes (i.e. it appears possible to go back to the first account again after the second - or third - one gives up the ghost)

Finally, I suspect that 'time of day' has a bearing. Payments attempted first thing in the morning (following multiple payments the day before) are more likely to be slowed. But in the afternoon the facility appears restored. I would speculate that 'day' for Halifax means something like midday to midday rather than midnight to midnight - and hence payment limits/restrictions get 'reset' during the afternoon - hence making later efforts more likely to succeed.

jennifernil

The daily limit is £2500, but HBOS FPs are totally unreliable. There is absolutely no rhyme nor reason to them.

You can be successful one minute and refused the next, it's a total farce.

Milarky

jennifernil wrote: »

The daily limit is £2500, but HBOS FPs are totally unreliable. There is absolutely no rhyme nor reason to them.

You can be successful one minute and refused the next, it's a total farce.

I agree that not knowing in advance is the real problem. Nationwide was very tardy bringing in Faster Payments - but when they did (£1000 per day, per account) they were upfront with information about limits - allowing a customer to plan and make use of the facility - restricted though it was.

Things will get better in time.

Mikeyorks

jennifernil wrote: »

The daily limit is £2500, but HBOS FPs are totally unreliable. There is absolutely no rhyme nor reason to them.

You can be successful one minute and refused the next, it's a total farce.

Fully agree. It's rare I exceed £1k if I'm transferring to a Lloyds Vantage - and that usually works. But I had occasion to pay my plumber a slightly > £1k deposit and a £1.9k balance (a week apart) a few weeks ago. On both transfers I had to split and re-try several times before I was successful. And they're both well below the alleged £2.5k.

Just over 2.5 years after the (much deferred) implementation date and set against a system norm of £10k (recently raised to a max of £100k) .......... it's a bit pathetic. And well past time the regulators started leaving teeth marks in a few corporate backsides.

greenleaf_2

There is an interesting update about Halifax Faster Payments written by BobHellen on Motley Fool -

(I'm afraid that MSE don't allow me to post the full link)

boards.fool.co.uk/halifax-faster-payments-update-12150654.aspx?sort=whole

Here is an extract from BobHellen's message:

"In summary I understand that whilst there is a published service standard that claims you can send up to £2500 by faster payments, this upper limit is subject to being overridden as and whenever Halifax deem it necessary to apply anti fraud measures. From my experience, I can only conclude that this is not a rare event. In fact it appears to be a very common event judging by the number of times I have had legitimate transactions diverted to a three day BACS service. From a customer perspective, whilst acknowledging the importance of security, I bound to say that I feel the security is overbearing and significantly degrades what should be a valuable feature of the online service. I know that one can come back and try again later but not only is it unreasonable to expect customers to spend all day repeatedly re-trying the transaction, but in my experience one day is sometimes not long enough.

"Whilst I am disappointed to know that this is how the system is designed to work, I also know that this issue has reached some very senior people within Halifax including the head of Personal Current Accounts and that the true cause of the problem has been identified. I also know that they are concerned enough to want to achieve a proper balance between service and security, hence the monitoring and collation of similar complaints. Whether or not this leads to material changes I cannot say but I would urge anyone who has a complaint specifically about the operation of FPS to make sure it is heard. If you are going to complain, try to give details of the account, the amount, the date and the time and what message appeared on screen when the transaction fails to be accepted by the FPS as this is required to enable the circumstances to be looked into . If enough people speak up, we may just persuade someone to change the way things are done."

So it seems that this could be a good time to contact Halifax regarding Faster Payments problems

greenleaf