Nat West bank - one try and then locked out!

ChiefGrasscutter

I've also got just an esaver a/c with Nat West and no other accounts or debit card
I've certainly made a mistake/typo before on my log in before.
I likewise got the message to check carefully my details and re-enter - just like poster "agrinnall" got.
I made sure the second time I got it right and it logged me in without any problem.

So if you are getting blocked after one try something odd is going on and frankly it should not work like this. Most systems usually seem to allow three tries.

pqrdef

callum9999 wrote: »

Could it be possible someone else put your account number in by mistake and tried twice unsuccessfully, then you came along and got it wrong - from their perspective - for the third time?

I've thought about this a few times because if you keep trying it with random numbers, surely you could end up locking random people out of their accounts?

I nearly did this once. On the old Tesco site, not very well designed, I mistyped my customer number. The next screen prompted for characters from PIN and password, but it didn't display your customer number or your name or anything to show who you were trying to be. So I typed the "correct" characters 3 times, and only realised in the nick of time what I'd done wrong.

One more keystroke and I'd have locked out some other customer. Then I'd have started again from scratch, given the right customer number, logged in, put it all down to a glitch, and carried on all blithely unawares.

As it was, I used up two of the other guy's three tries, so I can only hope he got it right first time. If he didn't, he had to wait a week for some snail mail.

agrinnall

pqrdef wrote: »

I nearly did this once. On the old Tesco site, not very well designed, I mistyped my customer number. The next screen prompted for characters from PIN and password, but it didn't display your customer number or your name or anything to show who you were trying to be. So I typed the "correct" characters 3 times, and only realised in the nick of time what I'd done wrong.

One more keystroke and I'd have locked out some other customer. Then I'd have started again from scratch, given the right customer number, logged in, put it all down to a glitch, and carried on all blithely unawares.

As it was, I used up two of the other guy's three tries, so I can only hope he got it right first time. If he didn't, he had to wait a week for some snail mail.

That would account for it but for NatWest it doesn't work that way, if you make a mistake on the PIN/Password screen it takes you back to the first screen and you have to completely re-enter the customer number before getting a second chance at the PIN/Password.

pqrdef

agrinnall wrote: »

That would account for it but for NatWest it doesn't work that way, if you make a mistake on the PIN/Password screen it takes you back to the first screen and you have to completely re-enter the customer number before getting a second chance at the PIN/Password.

That makes it a bit harder to use up two of somebody else's tries, but not much.

Ideally, either
(1) the user ID is supported by some other info - surname, date of birth, postcode - so the server will know if it's wrong, or
(2) the server responds to the user ID with a personalised greeting, so you'll be alerted if it thinks you're somebody else.

Point is, they shouldn't count a failed try against a user ID unless there's some supporting indication that the user ID given is the one intended.

It beggars belief that so many sites and systems are so badly designed. This stuff isn't rocket science.

Cash-Strapped.T32

I keep a small amount in a NatWest e-saver (no debit card) for vehicle expenses (MOT, INS, the usual), and one time a few months ago I had a similar experience.

I tried to log in, and got bounced back, the site telling me I'd entered my details incorrectly.
I tried a second time, extra-extra carefully, and got bounced back again. Gah!

Now I can just believe I'd got it wrong once, but probably not twice in a row (I know to check the obvious, caps-lock, the insert key on older KBs, etc..).

I didn't try a third time, but instead rang up customer services the next morning just to check there was nothing wrong with the account (like some cheeky !!!!!! changing my logon details).

In the event there seemed to be no issue, but to this day it seems odd because I'd never messed up an IB logon before or since that time..

stclair

agrinnall wrote: »

stclair wrote: »

Several issues that I can see:

1) My quote from a failed NatWest login suggests that if you get locked out of online banking it also locks you out of telephone banking.

If your are locked out of online banking you are not automatically locked out of telephone banking.

2) You shouldn't (and my experiment shows you don't) get locked out after 1 failed try so why did the advisor say that's what had happened?

I dont think anyone should be locked out after only one log in attempt. I think another customer may have had two failed log in attempts using the OP customer number incorrectly.

3) Most importantly, if it was possible to do it by phone why didn't the advisor offer to do that while the OP was on the phone to them?

Im unsure im not aware what conversation they both had.

fozmcfc

The online banking seems to be down at the moment, get pass the first stage and enter my pin and 3 password letters/numbers then it say unavailable.

dorsetlady

I put a complaint into Nat West and someone has just called me. He said, as some previous posters have suggested, that someone with a very similar customer number to me had tried to log in and this had then blocked my account. They had traced their IP address and found this out.

stclair

dorsetlady wrote: »

I put a complaint into Nat West and someone has just called me. He said, as some previous posters have suggested, that someone with a very similar customer number to me had tried to log in and this had then blocked my account. They had traced their IP address and found this out.

Im glad its been resolved for you I thought that would be the case.

Have you made u turn on closing your account now?

dorsetlady

stclair wrote: »

Im glad its been resolved for you I thought that would be the case.

Have you made u turn on closing your account now?

I plan to close it now as it's a savings account with a bonus interest rate which ends soon. As I know now that you normally have three attempts before being locked out I may open another Nat West account in the future. I was pleased to find out that it wasn't me - I was 100% sure that I'd entered the correct details - my partner got angry and called me incompetent :mad:. But my account was already blocked before I even tried!