Natwest: warning: card machine now required for payments & transfers!!

pimento

Do they have to plug into your PC?

ERICS_MUM

pimento wrote: »

Do they have to plug into your PC?

No. I suspect they work on some sort of algorithm with your debit card number. I'm happy to use mine for setting up and making 3rd party payments and setting up / amending standing orders. It's a small inconvenience for another layer of security.

I keep mine in a decorative box in the living room, together with cheque book, paying in book, pens, post-its, reading glasses etc to save cluttering up the coffee table and mantelpiece.

pinkshoes

angelil wrote: »

I now need to have this piece of equipment in my place that I will rarely use.

Piece of equipment?! You make it sound like a 6ft machine than bangs, clunks and beeps!

It's a teeny tiny pocket calculator thing that can be thrown in the back of a cupboard until needed, and if it helps prevent my bank account being emptied through fraud, then I don't mind pressing a few buttons when transferring money to someone elses account!

pimento

ERICS_MUM wrote: »

No. I suspect they work on some sort of algorithm with your debit card number. I'm happy to use mine for setting up and making 3rd party payments and setting up / amending standing orders. It's a small inconvenience for another layer of security.

I keep mine in a decorative box in the living room, together with cheque book, paying in book, pens, post-its, reading glasses etc to save cluttering up the coffee table and mantelpiece.

Ah, a bit like a Secure ID Token. Thanks

angelil

I appreciate it's probably small and convenient in itself - trouble is I have plenty of other "small convenient things" and together they all add up!

It's more about making the process more complicated than it needs to be - even if it does make things more secure. Online banking always seemed to work fine without it before so I don't see why banks need to fix what isn't broken. I now have to ask my mum to pay the bill for me so that it will be done before the deadline rather than risk waiting for the machine to arrive in time.

It's equally annoying to me as I now live outside the UK and so therefore hardly ever use this account - it just seems silly to have to have this for something I hardly ever have to do. I can appreciate it seems less bothersome when you have to use it more often. It would just seem more sensible to me for the bank to have this as an optional procedure - "you can proceed with your transfer in the normal way, or you can order one of our machines for extra security" etc...

shaun_from_Africa

Online banking always seemed to work fine without it before so I don't see why banks need to fix what isn't broken

.

It's a bit like credit card fraud, having your ID stolen, etc.
It's never a problem until it happens to you.

Fraudsters are continuing their switch from traditional card fraud to raiding online bank accounts, according to new research.

The number of "phishing" attacks, where fraudsters lead customers to fake bank websites via an email that purports to come from their bank, increased by 16% from 2008 to 51,000. This compares to just 1,700 such attacks five years ago.

As a result, online banking losses totalled almost £60m in 2009 compared to £52.5m in 2008 and £23.2m in 2005.

It's equally annoying to me as I now live outside the UK and so therefore hardly ever use this account

I also live outside of the UK, and it's because of this I think that making my account as secure as possible is good news.
If someone managed to access my account and make a fraudulent payment, it might be many weeks before I was able to get online and notice this.

Storck

angelil wrote: »

It's more about making the process more complicated than it needs to be - even if it does make things more secure. Online banking always seemed to work fine without it before so I don't see why banks need to fix what isn't broken.

It would just seem more sensible to me for the bank to have this as an optional procedure - "you can proceed with your transfer in the normal way, or you can order one of our machines for extra security" etc...

Once upon a time there was very little security on banking online but it has increased along with the risk of fraud etc. This was introduced many years ago.

As for the option, would it also come with an agreement that if you were defrauded then the bank could just ignore it as you had not used their equipment? If so you must be mad.

angelil

To assume I have never been a victim of credit card fraud before is foolish; I had it happen to me once before with a Halifax card. It still doesn't make me believe any less in the security of banking for most of the time. People this happens to are just unlucky; I'm not sure it's really possible to make this sort of thing 100% secure due to the sheer scale of it.

Maybe I came across as being more indignant than I had intended to be when I made this topic, but it is just really annoying when you first come across it only when a bill needs to be paid. Luckily for me someone else who is in the UK will be able to pay on my behalf in the meantime and I will be able to pay them back but unfortunately not everyone has that option.

If NatWest had wanted everyone to use this service why did they not send the machines out automatically when it was implemented? Or have an optional "opt in" service as I mentioned above (which would not need to come with such a disclaimer)? Just grrrr. Instead of just being able to pay my bill and get it done I now have to inconvenience somebody else for the privilege.

DCFC79

I dont see a problem with it, i know rbs have used the card readers for a couple of years as it was the first 1 got, good thing with them is you can use another banks reader with another card

Catssquirrel

Card reader, very good idea NatWest, only trouble is I have no card for my Internet account.