Help please!!! transferred £300 into the wrong account.

~Chameleon~

BlindLeadingTheBlind wrote: »

Am I alone in thinking the system for on-line payments is fundamentally flawed? Banks are encouraging us to use on-line banking with the assurance its safe and secure when it quite clearly isn't!

Yes. And why are you continuing to hijack somebody else's thread with this?

Hominu

BlindLeadingTheBlind wrote: »

Am I alone in thinking the system for on-line payments is fundamentally flawed? Banks are encouraging us to use on-line banking with the assurance its safe and secure when it quite clearly isn't!

I've never had a problem since I started using internet banking in 1998. Thats 15 years without a single problem. I wouldn't call that "fundamentally flawed".

BlindLeadingTheBlind wrote: »

There is a staggering number of cases out there involving often significant amounts of money which is lost forever to individuals because they've made a simple typo mistake!

If you don't think you can trust yourself to transfer funds, then you need to write everything down and ask you bank to do it for you. Expect a charge of about £25 for them to do this. If they make a typo and transfer to the wrong account they'll refund in full.

BlindLeadingTheBlind wrote: »

I cannot believe that in this day and age the system cannot be improved to include a check against the account payee's name before the payment is authorised.

Which can only be done by the receiving bank, by which time the payment is already authorised and sent. So your basically saying "bounce the payment is the payee name doesn't match". Queue lots of angry people because they made a typo in the recipients name.

Wouldn't it be far easier to enter the account number and sort code, check that you entered the right details, and THEN click "Confirm" ? And then on the page afterwards that asks you to double check, to actually double check what you entered? This will catch about 100% of typos, as it's unlikely you'll get a 0 mixed up with a O.

John1993_2

Hominu wrote: »

Wouldn't it be far easier to enter the account number and sort code, check that you entered the right details, and THEN click "Confirm" ?

Ah, but the probem with your approach is that Mr / Ms Blind would have to take responsibility for their own actions, which they don't want to do.

They want a system where they can happily bash away at the keyboard, make as many mistakes as they like, and then have someone else take care of the details for them.

matttye

JuicyJesus wrote: »

It's only fundamentally flawed if you expect computers to accept incorrect inputs and provide correct results.

There is nothing wrong with the present system, only the way in which the payment pages are presented with some banks.

When you are asked for a 'payee name' or an 'account name' or something like that, it is not unreasonable to assume that that information will be used as part of the transaction unless the bank states otherwise, on the page. Lloyds does this. Santander doesn't. I don't know about other banks.

If the bank states that only the sort code and account number are used to ascertain the payee then I think people will be more careful. If people think the sort code and account number will be compared to the payee's account name (which, as I previously said, isn't unreasonable if the bank doesn't make it clear that this isn't the case) - then people will expect those details not to match up if they make a mistake and will therefore be less careful.

If people fail to read a notice that is clearly displayed on the payment page, they have only themselves to blame, but the banks should be clear about what information is used.

bengal-stripe

matttye wrote: »

When you are asked for a 'payee name' or an 'account name' or something like that, it is not unreasonable to assume that that information will be used as part of the transaction unless the bank states otherwise, on the page. Lloyds does this. Santander doesn't. I don't know about other banks.

Why assume, unreasonable or not, when Santander does give the information that this is your reference:

"This is the payee name that appears on your statement or a name that will help you remember a payment."

Yes, you have to hover with your cursor above the question mark. Is that too difficult?

I have no idea how big the "problem" is. The vast majority of people are able to enter a few digits correctly. Even those who do make a mistake, the combination of sort code / account number they have used does not exist, so the dosh ends up in a suspense account and not in someone's live account.

matttye

bengal-stripe wrote: »

Why assume, unreasonable or not, when Santander does give the information that this is your reference:



Yes, you have to hover with your cursor above the question mark. Is that too difficult?

I have no idea how big the "problem" is. The vast majority of people are able to enter a few digits correctly. Even those who do make a mistake, the combination of sort code / account number they have used does not exist, so the dosh ends up in a suspense account and not in someone's live account.

Rather than argue this silly point ad nauseum, can I just ask what harm it will do if they make it absolutely plain on the page that the account name isn't used in the transaction?

JuicyJesus

matttye wrote: »

Rather than argue this silly point ad nauseum, can I just ask what harm it will do if they make it absolutely plain on the page that the account name isn't used in the transaction?

None whatsoever.

But it still doesn't make it their fault if you put in the wrong information and assume it will go to the right place.

matttye

JuicyJesus wrote: »

None whatsoever.

But it still doesn't make it their fault if you put in the wrong information and assume it will go to the right place.

I'm not saying it's their fault - I'm saying that anything to help prevent that from happening can only be a good thing.

pqrdef

JuicyJesus wrote: »

It's only fundamentally flawed if you expect computers to accept incorrect inputs and provide correct results.

They wouldn't work if they didn't. Networks, chips and hard disks are all inherently faulty at hardware level. Computers only work at all because they have error detection and correction systems.

The basic technique is redundancy. You store or send the critical data in more than one copy or version, in such a way that a fault in one is unlikely to be matched in the other, so they cross-check each other. It's not rocket science. The theory was set out in 1948. Bankers haven't read the paper because their interest in payment systems isn't in making them work but only in the fees they can charge.

pqrdef

matttye wrote: »

I'm not saying it's their fault - I'm saying that anything to help prevent that from happening can only be a good thing.

Precisely. People make mistakes all the time. People do stupid things all the time. I did one yesterday. Can't believe I did it.

But people can't afford to lose hundreds of pounds every time they make a silly mistake. We need systems that make it possible to correct expensive mistakes, or almost impossible to make them.

Just saying "be careful" doesn't cut it.