Bank of Scotland / Halifax - Faster Payments

Tommo781

I have now found out that I sent too many FPs for £1,000 (the maximum) in too short a space of time - i.e practically daily. I did 12 in a 14 day period, but only because of the pathetic £1,000 limit. I didn't make one £12,000 BACS payment at the start, as the money was not all in my BofS account then. It was coming in from other places and the cheques had to be cleared. It is definitely BofS at fault, not the recipient Bank, they have admitted it. They have put a complete block on my sending FPs to the other bank, which will also affect the standing order I pay to the same account every month. The block will NEVER come off. There is no capability for them to do it.

What a stupid system. And we put a man on the moon in 1969!

MagicBurd29

What a complete shower of incompetents.

HBOS tell me tonight that Faster Payments is "not always available" and "we sometimes have trouble with the system" and "we're having trouble tonight".

When I complained they basically said that they never guaranteed that any of their systems would be available; if that meant I couldn't settle my credit card bill on time, well, tough luck.

I've run a few tests. Out of some 20 attempts to send a Faster Payment, two got through to the final "yes we'll do it" stage; the rest failed. This firstly from an account from which I have made the FP successfully before, and secondly from a separate account; and for a range of values, above and below what I have transferred successfully before. The two which looked they would have got through were for intermediate values.

So basically if you're with HBOS you can't / mustn't rely on Faster Payments because randomly, intermittently, it just won't work.

And they don't give a $&![.

That does it. After years of putting up with their increasing incompetence in every aspect of my dealings with them, I'm going to move elsewhere.

Makes me ashamed to be a Scot.

:mad:

rb10

earwig1928 wrote: »

So basically if you're with HBOS you can't / mustn't rely on Faster Payments because randomly, intermittently, it just won't work.

Nearly always works for me. On the occasional time it doesn't work, I just leave it a couple of hours, and then it's fine, goes straight through.

For me it is working fine tonight.

withnell

nearly always works for me too - the other day i sent 5 * 500 lots off - never been able to do more than 2k a day before!

Dagobert

Customer Services has just confirmed to me that the current FP limit is £1000 per payment (probably per destination) - if and when it works. Totally unprompted, the guy told me that the FP system is not always available.

Dagobert

Tommo781 wrote: »

I found out Friday evening why I can't do Faster Payments any more. I have done too many(!) so the fraud/security system barred any more from my account.

I have fallen into the same trap as Tommo781. After having transferred out £15K from two BoS current accounts in one day and 17 chunks, both these accounts can no longer send FP.

masonic

Dagobert wrote: »

I have fallen into the same trap as Tommo781. After having transferred out £15K from two BoS current accounts in one day and 17 chunks, both these accounts can no longer send FP.

That's pretty unfair. I hope you will make a formal complaint if the block isn't removed.

Dagobert

masonic wrote: »

I hope you will make a formal complaint

That's my speciality.

Dagobert

I phoned customer services who contacted their fraud department. They claim that there are no blocks on my accounts and that it is simply due to the fact that FPs are not guaranteed.

They do not explain why I can make the same £1 FP from one BoS account but not from the two others. I have been trying everyday since.

Dagobert

Faster Payments possible again from all of my BoS accounts. Is this coincidence or have the blocks just dropped off after week?