Fraudulent Transaction. NatWest say "phone on Monday"

innovate

stclair wrote: »

I bet the transaction will be genuine in the end after this song and dance.

Even if you are right with your remote diagnostics of the case, this is absolutely no explanation/justification for the official CS/fraud team to tell the customer to call back on the next working day. Dreadful way to treat a customer!

The_pc_tech

I don't work for a bank or in the financial industry at all but I do understand the system a little.

I suspect Natwest are waiting to see if settlement is requested on the transaction which usually happens when a business closes for the day, all that has probably happened so far is the transaction has been authorised.

In my experience as a customer card payments made over the weekend don't normally appear until Monday or Tuesday.

I know this doesn't help the OP much.

I ditched Natwest a number of years ago as on the few occasions I rang up although it was UK based it seemed like anything you asked them to do was too much trouble.

dalesrider

TiddlyPom wrote: »

:rotfl: To me it is semantics on the bank's behalf whether the funds have actually been debited or not when to all intents and purposes they have as they are not available to me.
.

While I understand where you are coming from on this one. I'll try to explain this from a banks perspective.

A authorisation is just that. It may or may not debit, that is down to the retailer and no one else.
So while YES it does take away avaiable funds, it cannot be refunded. Because it has not and may not debit.
Even FOS will side with the bank on this.

But if it is causing you issues getting funds. Then NW should have increased you O/D limit by £62 to allow you use of your money.
Of course this will be short term and free, till the £62 is resolved.
If you also go over limit or have a offset mortgage then if it turns out to be a fraudlent transaction. They have to refund all these as well. Or any lost interest.

stclair

innovate wrote: »

stclair, I usually agree with your posts, but on this one I just can't. You are not sounding like the usual stclair, you sound like a banker.

You didn't pick up on my earlier Q: How on earth is the OP meant to know that the £62 hasn't "actually" been debited, if their statement says it has been debited?

If someone spends money that, according to their statement, they didn't have, we rip them apart here for not managing their own finances.

If someone does look at their statement and questions a transaction, surely none of us can then tell them that this may or may not be a real transaction? Honest, this is just not on.

Normally banks such as lloyds transactions will show as pending showing a difference in the available and actual balance.

Natwest/RBS also do this and show a difference in the available and actual balance but they also post the transactions to the account without the retailers name until the transaction is complete.

If the OP uses their account as their main one they would see this all the time especially if they have a full auth debit card.

Where as other banks do not do that, so today for example ive used my lloyds card in tescos their is a difference in the actual and available balance but their is no sign of the transaction on my statement.

lll do a POS to someone for £1.00 so I can give you a demonstration and ill post the results after.

dalesrider

stclair wrote: »

My understanding is the bank can "only" refund a transaction once it's "actually" been debited.

In your circumstances the funds have not actually left your account yet.

# 38 says it has as its showing on online statement. That would say to me it has debited.

I have accounts with

Halifax, HSBC, First Direct and Mrs has Santander.
All of them only show debits once they hit the statements. If its still a authorisation it is just removed from the avaiable funds.

Or are NW diffrent from so many other banks systems.

stclair

dalesrider wrote: »

# 38 says it has as its showing on online statement. That would say to me it has debited.

I have accounts with

Halifax, HSBC, First Direct and Mrs has Santander.
All of them only show debits once they hit the statements. If its still a authorisation it is just removed from the avaiable funds.

Or are NW diffrent from so many other banks systems.

See above

pmduk

Can I just reiterate that stclair's version matches my experience as a customer with RBS group. Eg yesterday's transactions are just listing as POS, but dated tomorrow. I'll know they've cleared when I can see exactly who the money has gone to.

The transaction amount is removed from available funds but no further details are available. I have managed to find out once which co has charged the transaction, but the agent had to get the info from another section. (I assume these are the people stclair refers to). Certainly my call was made during normal office hours.

TiddlyPom

stclair wrote: »

This transaction could be a POS you did months ago and the retailer has only just processed it.

Because I have limited income, I check my online account regularly and keep a mental note of what I've spent vs available balance, so I would know if this was an old transaction that had not yet gone through. Years ago, I had a load of months old transactions go through at once taking me by surprise, so I am aware of this possibility and account for it mentally.

The current card is a Visa Debit. The account has been open almost 6 years and this current card replaced the previous one which expired last October. I don't think it is a full authority card and I don't qualify for any kind of overdraft (even to cover this £62) as I am medically retired, so very small income and no salary. This is why I keep such a careful note of all incomings and outgoings. I have to!

Reason I said semantics is they have made this money unavailable to me before the date of the transaction, yet there could have been a scenario where I went into the bank 1st thing Monday and paid in a large amount of cash which would cover this transaction. Not explained it very well but I'm sure you get the gist.

innovate

dalesrider wrote: »

A authorisation is just that. It may or may not debit, that is down to the retailer and no one else.

Yes, I understand that - - - but not if the transaction is for a card that expired last October. No bank should ever accept an authorisation against an expired card. Otherwise, why expire the card in the first instance?

dalesrider wrote: »

Then NW should have increased you O/D limit by £62 to allow you use of your money.

Absolutely, That would have been proper Customer Service with an upper case C and an upper case S. Instead, they are giving the cardholder the runaround, and upset them unneccesarily. Really terrible CS.

dalesrider

innovate wrote: »

Yes, I understand that - - - but not if the transaction is for a card that expired last October. No bank should ever accept an authorisation against an expired card. Otherwise, why expire the card in the first instance?

.

I do not know if NW replac cards with the same number or not. Some do, some don't

But if the retailer presents the transaction with a auth code then it will go through.

TBH. Untill the OP has spoke to NW team about this and if we get more info, then we are going in circles.

But the NW sales pitch has to make you laugh....