Alliance & Leicester Faster Payments out

heloid

c-m wrote: »

yeah, but that is pointless, why do they do that?

Security/first payment safeguard. If you enter a payee incorrectly there is more chance of getting the money back if it is BACS than FP.
Doubt it helps in very many cases though..

masonic

heloid wrote: »

Security/first payment safeguard. If you enter a payee incorrectly there is more chance of getting the money back if it is BACS than FP.
Doubt it helps in very many cases though..

If you haven't noticed it's wrong just before confirming the transfer, you're pretty unlikely to notice of your own accord afterwards... that is until you find the money hasn't arrived where you thought you'd sent it. At that point it would probably be too late for a BACS recall.

masonic

blueberrypie wrote: »

They might show on your balance, but if you spend the funds on the same day they're received in the account, you're liable to be charged for going overdrawn. A&L require that funds are in the account by the end of business on the *previous* day. In other words, if you had £200 in your account on Tuesday night, deposited £500 on Wednesday (even in cash), then spent £300 on Wednesday, A&L would consider you to have gone overdrawn.

No they wouldn't. You can do that with no problem. What you can't do is pay in money on Wednesday to cover a standing order or Direct Debit that has already left some time after midnight on Wednesday.

mazza_c

It seems that as of august (2010) that the Faster Payments scheme still wasn't working.

I attempted to transfer £200 from A+L to HSBC to cover a credit card bill. The money didn't go through until 3 days later and so I got a hefty charge from HSBC for overdrawing. I transferred money today again from A+L to HSBC and it went through instantly!

I rang A+L helpdesk and the first guy I got was very rude, said the service was not guaranteed and put the phone down on me! The second time I rang (to A+L complaints department) was far better and they explained that the reason the first payment took so long was that they are currently moving their systems to Santandar and therefore the system thought my transfer was to a new payee. They said from now on transfers should be immediate to this payee.

Regarding my charge at HSBC, I went into my local branch and explained what happened. As they could see my money in the process of being transferred they were very nice and agreed to refund my charge! Therefore if anyone else has this problem, I recommend going into your receiving bank's branch and ask them to refund the charge.

carpy

yep i noticed that too. made a payment out of £250 , last night, that normally would transfer straight away....still not there!

did they tell us this would happen??? i'm not sure they did...in which case a complaint is in order i think

anyone finding this or know anything more??

YorkshireBoy

carpy wrote: »

anyone finding this

I was transferring a total of £1K out to 4 different accounts. The first £250 payment went by FP, and the other three £250 payments appear to have gone by BACS.

These were all payments to existing payees, and I'd already made the first £1 test transfers by BACS so expected (from reports on here and my own experience) them to go by FP this time.

It's an occupational hazard for me (I'm just cycling funds for Halifax Rewards and stoozing the A&L overdraft), but I can see it being a problem for others.

huw01

these forums would be pretty empty without A&L / El Banco Santander

purplealpha

Just spoke to Santander 10 mins ago 18/08/2010, they said that faster payments (FP) are NOT guaranteed.

Spoke with them 2 weeks ago to ask why existing payee which used to go via FP was now going via BACS. They said IT system was being transferred to Santander so first payment would go via BACS and then all subsequent payments would go FP. Ok then.

Made another payment and this time went via FP. No problems. But a couple of days ago I made another payment so same payee as before and this went via BACS, then another which went via FP . Phoned A&L/Santander and they tried fobbing me off with the first time you do it etc etc so explained this was not the first time. She then put me on hold, spoke with a colleague (?) then said that Santander cannot guarantee FP's. So I said so it is a gamble (50/50) whether it goes FP or BACS, and you don’t know until you have made the payment and if it gets sent via BACS you cannot then get it back, she said that was right so I should give 4 working days notice to be on safe side, but I could log a complaint about it which I did.

Will be moving my current account as soon as possible, I do not know how they can say they offer faster payments. She even started to blame the receiving bank!

Terrible bank, terrible service.

firsttimestudent

It amazes me sometimes that these customer service agents are able to be 'trained' to utter the words "Faster Payments are not guaranteed". I call it brainwashing.

Agreed, Faster Payments was never designed to be as reliable as CHAPS, but surely, there is a way of making things a lot more consistent (like Natwest, RBS, HSBC, Barclays)? Aren't all these things computerised?

zppp

firsttimestudent wrote: »

Aren't all these things computerised?

Yes but it depends on whether the instituion wants to spend money on the systems for FP or not. Some do more than others.