Ffrees accounts - no money in or out

richardH

I wonder how many other others are suffering from the failure of the Ffrees banking system? I can't find any reports online for it - apart from their own status page - but it has been impossible to put money in or take money out for at least 48 hours now.

It first came to my attention when a person I help (who has mental health problems) reported that this benefit payment (ESA in this case) had not arrived, which left him with no money at all. That was on Wednesday 2nd May at 8am. A second person with a Ffrees account had exactly the same experience. I have a Ffrees account as a secondary backup - and testing it I found the same - impossible to send money to the account from Nationwide - payment rejected on the basis that the sort code and account number could not be found.

Ringing Ffrees on 2nd May produced a message saying they were aware of the problem and expected to fix it very soon - that was about 2pm. No resolution by bedtime that day. Ringing the next day just produced the message that there was no-one available to take the call - and the line went dead.

We are now on 4th May and the status (Google "Ffrees status" to see it) remains the same. Ffrees is blaming technical issues with their "banking partner". That will be Nat West again then.

I see no sign of any urgency to sort this out. It is fairly catastrophic for people on benefits who have no spare cash, and live from one benefits payment to the next. The people I support have me to help them - and I can find creative ways around the problem. Many will have no such support. The DWP may have some contingency plan for this sort of problem - but I rather doubt it.

Richard

paragon909

Tell the person who hasn't been paid to contact ESA to see what the status of the payment is on their end. Normally it would say something like cashed or cleared. Get DWP to put a trace on the bacs payment.

richardH

Yes, I will do that. However I have no particular fears that the money won't be paid by the DWP in the end. Right now - the problem is actually putting money into the recipients' hands. Loans by cash is one method when the person is reasonably close. One person I help lives 100 miles away, and I have had to identify a friend of theirs who has a working bank account, and who can be trusted - get their bank details and send money that way.

richardH

A quick update, having just checked the Ffrees status page again (sorry - I am not allowed to post a link to it). It seems that the problem is now resolved according to Ffrees. Rejected payments into the accounts will have to be resent of course.

And it seems the problem was worse than I described. I only became aware of it on Wednesday 2nd May at 8am, but it actually started at 9:45am on Tuesday 1st May - so I day earlier than I said.