NatWest: Denial of service

samizdat

agrinnall wrote: »

If that's really your view then I think you'll need to keep your money under the bed, because every financial institution operating in the UK will be required to monitor transactions for money laundering and other fraudulent activity, and I would be astonished if you can find one that will spell out in precise detail what their criteria are.

Well, this is why I invited people to share their own stories in my original post. I had hoped to find examples of better practice than at NatWest.

In my own, obviously anecdotal, experience, NatWest operate an incompetent system, much worse than others I have encountered.

jalexa

samizdat wrote: »

Well, this is why I invited people to share their own stories in my original post.

Natwest/RBS were early adopters of Faster Payments full scheme limits (unlike other banks) and I have never experienced any transactional problems up to the scheme limits, unlike their sometimes dire and incompetent handling of their own complaint's process.

opinions4u

The difficulty with any procedure that is clear and straight forward to use is that the same applies to crooks as it does to honest customers.

Publish something that says "if you do it this way we will intervene and delay the transaction" and Johnny Fraudster will find a way round it.

You are currently asking banks to publish a handbook to make life easy for fraudsters.

It shouldn't happen. It's not going to happen. And if it occasionally inconveniences a tiny minority of customers then so be it.

samizdat

jalexa wrote: »

In my experience Natwest/RBS were early adopters of the Faster Payments scheme full limits (unlike many other banks) and I have never experienced any problems.

It is true that they were relatively early adopters of the Faster Payments system. Of course, the entire industry dragged its feet for years over its introduction, and the system was then implemented in a very piecemeal fashion.

I will concede that RBS/NatWest did better than most by fully implementing the £10,000 limit, at a time when some other banks were still using BACS. In fact, that was one reason I chose to put some savings with them.

Still, if they are going to block payments to accounts that were the original source of funds, this benefit is purely theoretical.

meer53

Good luck with finding another bank that doesn't monitor accounts for suspected money laundering or fraud. Because there aren't any.

It's normal procedure as you've been advised already, but they aren't obliged to provide you with any information about when or how they do it. Defeats the object otherwise doesn't it ?

samizdat

opinions4u wrote: »

The difficulty with any procedure that is clear and straight forward to use is that the same applies to crooks as it does to honest customers.

Publish something that says "if you do it this way we will intervene and delay the transaction" and Johnny Fraudster will find a way round it.

You are currently asking banks to publish a handbook to make life easy for fraudsters.

It should happen. It's not going to happen. And if it occasionally inconveniences a tiny minority of customers then so be it.

No, I am not asking them to do this. I am asking them to run better systems, so that they are able to rely on them. Of course, fraud could always occur, but a good system will minimise that.

It really can be very important for people to be able to use their accounts, for example if someone gets a margin call from a bank. Try telling a bank that you cannot meet a margin call, because another bank has blocked you from accessing your account.

This is why they need robust systems. I welcomed the introduction of card readers, because I felt that this significantly improved banking security. Now I find that, even though I used this system to set up a payee on my account, and that payee also happened to be the original source of funds to NatWest, NatWest have still decided to prevent payments going to that account.

I find that ridiculous, and it is a problem with NatWest's own system that NatWest is choosing to operate.

samizdat

meer53 wrote: »

Good luck with finding another bank that doesn't monitor accounts for suspected money laundering or fraud. Because there aren't any.

It's normal procedure as you've been advised already, but they aren't obliged to provide you with any information about when or how they do it. Defeats the object otherwise doesn't it ?

I didn't ask them to provide me with any information about their systems. Several people have claimed this in this thread, but there no basis for it in anything I have written.

All I am saying is, based on the actual facts of this case, which a lot of posters don't seem to be taking on board, it was absurd for NatWest to block access to my account.

opinions4u

samizdat wrote: »

All I am saying is, based on the actual facts of this case, which a lot of posters don't seem to be taking on board, it was absurd for NatWest to block access to my account.

I don't know the full facts of the case.

Equally, neither do you.

You don't know what triggered the systems to get over-excited and create the difficulty you currently have. You are looking at thing one dimensionally - you're transfer hasn't worked the way you expected and it's miffed you.

You don't know how justified Nat West are in taking the action that they've taken and you're never going to know the full details because unless they are really stupid they are not going to be sharing them with you.

So you don't know whether it's absurd or not.

It's possibly a silly error on their part. It may be poor system programming. More likely there's a pattern to recent transactions on your aco!!!!s that inadvertently mirrors similar patterns involved in certain stages of fraud.

Irritating when it inconveniences the innocent, I agree.

But you don't know the full facts of why Nat West have done what they've done so you don't know if it's absurd or not.

I didn't ask them to provide me with any information about their systems

Do you remember typing this?

If you ask your customers to follow certain security procedures, then I think you must accept all transactions that are carried out in accordance with those procedures. If the bank feels that the published procedures are inadequate, and that additional measures are necessary, they should publicly change the procedures.

samizdat

jalexa wrote: »

Any customer concern is a "complaint" and can be raised in any of the ways mentioned in the complaints procedure. You can complain about any complaint handling not fully in accordance with that procedure, particularly the manager's demeanour.

Regarding the transaction issue, why the rant ahead of the complaint final response? That's why there is a complaint's procedure.

Jalexa, You have edited your post to read something completely different from what you originally wrote. If you want to make a new point, you should add it at the end of the thread, and not just overwrite a previous post.

In your second paragraph, I don't understand what you mean when you say: "Regarding the transaction issue, why the rant ahead of the complaint final response? That's why there is a complaint's procedure."

Are you saying I shouldn't be posting here until I have followed the bank's complaint procedure to a conclusion?

If so, I can see why that might be a more balanced approach to the issue. But obviously I was frustrated at not being able to access my accounts at NatWest, and then became particularly annoyed by having to spend two hours on the phone with three different customer service people before anyone would even give me a reference number for my complaint.

I felt NatWest were operating a stupid system, and I thought I would come here to discuss it. I do think I have valid concerns, but obviously others are free to disagree, as many have done already.

jalexa

samizdat wrote: »

Jalexa, You have edited your post to read something completely different from what you originally wrote.

I sometimes tidy up immediately after first posting without entering an edit reason. Where I subsequently make substantive changes it is my normal practice to provide an edit reason. *If* I did not do so *and* I changed the post to make it "completely different" more than a minute or so after first post then I apologise.

What are the two versions and timings of concern? Be aware that I would not always give an edit reason for a typo correction or minor word rearrangement therefore post timings may not always be relevant to the substantive content.

I note my original post is 08:19 and last edit 09:01 (cannot remember the reason). I also note your response is 10:33, plenty of time for you to accept the current wording, which you have quoted:D.