Transferring between two internet savings accounts, security question.

paul5046

Hi,

I've had an internet savings account with Natwest for many years, but last week decided to open a second to spread my savings. I opened an Alliance and Leicester e-saver. Last night i set it up and logged in. To transfer money was easy, set £50 from my Natwest current account, click submit. But i dont have to tell the Natwest i'm doing this.

My question is, if someone gave me a cheque, what stops me using the account number and sort code details and setting that up as my nominated account and transferring money from them. Surely i have to authorise Natwest to allow funds out, but apparently not.

tarajayne

Sounds like you set up a standing order, so A&L will now post it to you to sign and then send it to Natwest to authorise. Usually what happens!

crumpetman

Can you confirm what you actually did?

Did you log in to your natwest account and send money to your alliance and leicester account?

Did you log into your alliance and leicester account and set up a direct debit from your natwest account?

The usual way of using internet savings accounts is to have a linked account and that is what you use to send and receive from the savings account.

If you were to put in someone elses current account details as your linked account then possibly it would let you (I have never tried) set up a direct debit and allow you to transfer funds to your savings account. But, it is very unlikely that the owner of the current account is not going to notice that you have setup a direct debit and are taking money from their account. Then you'll be thrown in prison for stealing money. Or something like that...

~Chameleon~

Also, to set up a linked current account to your savings you usually have to send a personal cheque deposit from an account in your name to prove the account is actually yours

Seajays

crumpetman wrote: »

If you were to put in someone elses current account details as your linked account then possibly it would let you (I have never tried) set up a direct debit and allow you to transfer funds to your savings account. But, it is very unlikely that the owner of the current account is not going to notice that you have setup a direct debit and are taking money from their account. Then you'll be thrown in prison for stealing money. Or something like that...

I agree with crumpetman... If what you've done is set up a direct debit to your Natwest account, then:

a) Your Natwest account is protected by the Direct Debit guarantee (if funds are removed incorrectly all the money is returned).
b) A&L have your personal details, so as pointed out, if you set up a direct debit to someone else's account, the boys in blue would be round with a few questions.

Course that's not to say that fraud could never happen - but see (a) above.

paul5046

crumpetman wrote: »

Can you confirm what you actually did?

Did you log in to your natwest account and send money to your alliance and leicester account?

Did you log into your alliance and leicester account and set up a direct debit from your natwest account?

No, done nothing with the Natwest.

Richard_Cocks

It would have required you to set up a Direct Debit from the A&L end; While this doesn't require anything from the Natwest end, security in finance is not set up to stop people stealing money, it's set up to catch them when they do. (The same is true for real bank security, they'll let you walk out with the money so they don't get shot, but they will catch you and recover the money.)

So if this happened to your NatWest account you would just phone up NatWest, tell them what had happened and they'd put the money back in your account and contact the police regarding suspicious account usage.