SWIFT International Money Transfer Warning

ThatManViv

If you are in the UK you might care to pay particular attention to this.

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In case anyone is tempted to use this service here's my story.

On July 29th I sent £1250 to an account overseas using a "Nationwide" B.S. (Banking Service ???). They told me it was a 48 hour service, but, three weeks later the money has not arrived in the account.

Quite frankly there are so many errors in the transfer form that a ten year old could have completed it better.

But, (and here is the warning part) in the small print it says that I, and I alone, am responsible for the transaction. They will accept no responsibility at all. And they do not refund the service fee no matter what happens.

They will not provide any documentary evidence to support their claims that the money transferred correctly. They deceived me by advising me that on two occasions I was speaking to a person within the SWiFT system when I was really speaking to some pion in a "Nationwide" office.

It just seems incredible that with all the Financial Services rules and regulations we have today that this behaviour is occurring.

So, if you need to send money abroad and PayPal is not available, I strongly suggest you do your best to avoid the SWIFT money transfer service.

viv
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missile

Similar to the responses I got from NW when enquiring what happened to my ISA transfer.

Have you used Paypal to transfer funds to EU bank? How does that work, what was the exchange rate and charges?

SohoAnthem

I've never had a problem transferring money oversea's. Most recently, did a few hundred pound, was there when my boyfriend checked. I have never heard/used this "Swift" service though.

Sorry to hear this happened to you. :eek:

cyberbob

ThatManViv wrote: »

But, (and here is the warning part) in the small print it says that I, and I alone, am responsible for the transaction. They will accept no responsibility at all. And they do not refund the service fee no matter what happens.
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Of course you are as you are responsible for insuring the details of the receiving account are correct it's the same with a domestic bank transfer

ThatManViv wrote: »

They told me it was a 48 hour service, but, three weeks later the money has not arrived in the account.

It's not a guaranteed 48 hour service in fact they say 72 hours not 48 for EU transfers

Nationwide wrote:

SWIFT payments within the EEA (European Economic Area) will usually take 3 working days to reach the destination bank, but payments outside the EEA may take longer. Payments to India can take up to 3 months and occasionally longer to reach the beneficiary account. Please follow this link for a list of EEA countries.

Sounds like another case of someone using a service they didn't spend 10 minutes checking out how it worked.

Nukumai

SohoAnthem wrote: »

I have never heard/used this "Swift" service though.

SWIFT is a global leader in messaging between banks - they pretty much set the standard for electronic financial transactions.

Nukumai

ThatManViv wrote: »

So, if you need to send money abroad and PayPal is not available, I strongly suggest you do your best to avoid the SWIFT money transfer service.

I think you will find it is your bank's use of SWIFT that is causing the problem for you...not SWIFT itself.

SWIFT messaging (eg. electronic cash transfers) is virtually instant.

Mupette

Dad was most upset when through Halifax, transferred funds from Halifax to his french account, what they don't tell you is how many banks they go through and they each take a chunk out of them money, i think dad said it went through 3 or 4 banks by the time the money got to him and they were all part of the rbs...

ERICS_MUM

Mupette wrote: »

Dad was most upset when through Halifax, transferred funds from Halifax to his french account, what they don't tell you is how many banks they go through and they each take a chunk out of them money, i think dad said it went through 3 or 4 banks by the time the money got to him and they were all part of the rbs...

1) There sometimes needs to be a "chain" of banks between the first bank and the final bank, usually because the first bank does not have a banking relationship with the final one - they need to use one or more intermediary bank. The banks in the chain would not be part of the RBS group, just a correspondent.

2) When the euro was introduced, it was decided that only the first or last bank in the payment chain would take a charge. I'm out of touch with euro payments now but I'd be surprised if it has changed.

3. SWIFT is "owned" or at least paid for, by the banks that use it. It is a very robust and accurate infrastructure and most problems encountered with payments and other transactions are usually the fault of the sending, receiving or intermediary banks, not of SWIFT itself.

4. If you dad sent his payment through Halifax then it's more likely that the banks in the chain were correspondents of the Bank of Scotland (BOS) who own Halifax, not RBS.

Mupette

ERICS_MUM wrote: »

1) There sometimes needs to be a "chain" of banks between the first bank and the final bank, usually because the first bank does not have a banking relationship with the final one - they need to use one or more intermediary bank. The banks in the chain would not be part of the RBS group, just a correspondent.

2) When the euro was introduced, it was decided that only the first or last bank in the payment chain would take a charge. I'm out of touch with euro payments now but I'd be surprised if it has changed.

3. SWIFT is "owned" or at least paid for, by the banks that use it. It is a very robust and accurate infrastructure and most problems encountered with payments and other transactions are usually the fault of the sending, receiving or intermediary banks, not of SWIFT itself.

4. If you dad sent his payment through Halifax then it's more likely that the banks in the chain were correspondents of the Bank of Scotland (BOS) who own Halifax, not RBS.

sorry yes BOS,

when dad questioned and viewed which banks were involved they were all apart from the final one being the french account, all part of the BOS group, i saw this for myself, although cant say which ones there were right now as info is in france

nomoneytoday

There is a tag on the swift to state payer or receiver pays the fees.
The swift part is almost instant

biscit

I know on my Nationwide statements the SWIFT code is different to the BIC- I think they use HSBC (formerly Midland bank) as an intermediary?