Santander rejecting and then paying FP

Herbalus

The last four times I've set up a new payee and transferred money to them through Santander, three transactions appear on the statement. I transfer the money once, but the statement looks something like this:
14 Feb / Transfer to X / -£100
15 Feb / Transfer rejected / +£100
15 Feb / Transfer to X / -£100

Does anybody know the reason behind this? It doesn't happen with my other bank accounts.

If it helps, the smallest of these transactions was £1001 (to Lloyds Vantage).

Archi_Bald

I have dozens of similar entries on my statements. First time it happened I called them and asked for an explanation. I never got a real explanation but it seems to be a result of Santander's somewhat overzealous fraud checking. Though on balance, I'd rather they overdid the checking than not do enough of it.

I have never had any payment fail completely but sometimes they took up to 12 hours to go through whatever checks they go through before they released the payment.

Herbalus

Archi_Bald wrote: »

I have never had any payment fail completely but sometimes they took up to 12 hours to go through whatever checks they go through before they released the payment.

All of my payments went through as well in the end, but I just wondered if I should be worried about their process. They should do their checks, sure, but it looked to me that somebody has pressed the wrong button during these checks, rejected it, and then had to manually send the payment again. Once is fine, but doing that four times seems a little incompetent.

SuperAllyB

When i filled my newly opened Flexdirect from my 123 account, i sent a £1 test payment first (paranoid lol) which went instantly. The second payment for £2499 had the same out-in-out scenario as you have had.

badger09

SuperAllyB wrote: »

When i filled my newly opened Flexdirect from my 123 account, i sent a £1 test payment first (paranoid lol) which went instantly. The second payment for £2499 had the same out-in-out scenario as you have had.

That is definitely anti fraud checking .

Apparently, sending a small test payment, followed by a much larger one, is typical behaviour of online bank fraudsters. :cool:

Unfortunately, it is also typical behaviour of most sensible people who want to check they have entered the recipient's account details correctly before sending substantial amounts

stowupland4

This has just happened to me. Small payment sent to test. Then larger amount sent to another banks ISA.
Santander said if it was a fraud query the money wouldn't have been sent at all, and said it must be the ISA bank that rejected it.
I hope this doesn't happen too often, I like to rely on 2 hour faster payments.

agrinnall

stowupland4 wrote: »

This has just happened to me. Small payment sent to test. Then larger amount sent to another banks ISA.
Santander said if it was a fraud query the money wouldn't have been sent at all, and said it must be the ISA bank that rejected it.
I hope this doesn't happen too often, I like to rely on 2 hour faster payments.

You cannot rely on FPs going through in 2 hours. Yes, the majority will, but any payment can take until the end of the next business day and still be within the terms of the Payment Services Directive. And there is nothing you can do to guarantee that any payment you make will go through within 2 hours.

Steve_xx

I've seen this happen numerous times with Sanatander.

System

Santander do seem to do it much more often than other banks.

agrinnall wrote: »

You cannot rely on FPs going through in 2 hours. Yes, the majority will, but any payment can take until the end of the next business day and still be within the terms of the Payment Services Directive. And there is nothing you can do to guarantee that any payment you make will go through within 2 hours.

Steve_xx

Heng_Leng wrote: »

Santander do seem to do it much more often than other banks.

Yes they do. But the good thing about Santander is that it seems to sort itself out quickly, whereas with Lloyds it's a right palava and you generally have to phone them and undergo the twenty questions rigmarole.