Name-check service for online payments delayed till next March - MSE News

Former_MSE_Megan_F

Major banks are to be given more time to set up a service to check the name of the person or company you're sending money to online...

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'Name-check service for online payments delayed till next March'

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One-Eye

They still have many problems to overcome. One bank I use online allows a maximum of 18 characters for the payee, another only allows alpha-numeric characters (ie. no hyphens, apostrophes). MR HUGH FEARNLEY-WHITTINGSTALL is still waiting for his payment.

xylophone

MR HUGH FEARNLEY-WHITTINGSTALL is still waiting for his payment.

As is Master Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor?:rotfl:

I_luv_cats

Why don't people send a £1 (pound) and confirm the rightful participant has received it. (before sending more)

Paypal send 1p with a ref number that you need to give them to validate it's your bank account to receive future remittances

Ed-1

I_luv_cats wrote: »

Why don't people send a £1 (pound) and confirm the rightful participant has received it. (before sending more)

Most likely because of all the reports of banks blocking the subsequent payment because their algorithms think it's a fraudster testing the account with a small amount before sending the rest.

18cc

yep guaranteed to get a fraid filter block is to send £1 followed by £5k

Fingerbobs

18cc wrote: »

yep guaranteed to get a fraid filter block is to send £1 followed by £5k

Sorry, but I have to disagree. This is the process I have always used when sending large amounts to a new payee, and I've never had any problems at all.

jonnygee2

It was a nice idea but never really thought through before being made a policy.

For starters, there are a lot of people who don't share their legal names with others (trans customers for example). Then, as there's a character limit in FPS systems, there are people whose name needs to be shorterned and no fixed way to shorten it. And, when people change their names, it's going to cause a lot of problems as it's difficult to change everything at the same time.

It would help combat all kinds of mistakes and faster payment fraud though if it works.

However

So long as there's a commonsense fuzzy name-matching policy (as does appear to be proposed), I cannot see what to object to.



But strict and automated comparison checks will cause problems. E.g. Vodaphone Top-Ups requires your address, and requires you to use their find-your-address method - and then instantly rejects it. Why? Because the post office puts an apostrophe in my village's name, and Vodaphone cannot handle apostrophes. Been like that for years - complaining just falls on deaf ears.


Another system I used to use but now cannot, demands an exact account name match and then only allows you to enter the first 10 or so characters, so any account name over 10 characters results in a mismatch and rejection. How stupid is that?

SustainabilityMary

Why are the HMRC bank accounts not registered with the Payee checking service? 
It would help reduce some scammers pretending to be from HMRC and asking people to transfer money.
I was surprised my bank could not verify the HMRC bank account details I used to pay outstanding tax!. 

 

eskbanker

SustainabilityMary said:

Why are the HMRC bank accounts not registered with the Payee checking service? 

Because there is no such registration process?