Confirmation of Payee (CoP): how do I find out what name my bank has registered me with?

colsten

Great example of what #CoronaBoredom can lead to.

kulath said:

"ask the bank": you are joking aren't you, at the moment the bank is not responding to anything cos coronavirus.

"name shown on bank statements": this varies from statement to statement from the same bank.

"id used to open the account": as I said in the original question, that was ages ago, and I certainly don't have a record going back that far; you are supposed to shred everything over 5 (or something) years old.

"overthinking, just additional check": no, I tried to pay a garden contractor, and it just said the name didn't match, didn't say what the mis-match was.

"name on credit report": I don't have a credit report, are you saying I should get one just to check what the bank should be telling me?

"statement of fees": thanks for that suggestion, the name does seem to be consistent across several different accounts.

But, the main point is, why aren't the bank explaining this, and telling us exactly what the situation is. They have had almost a decade to get ready for all this; they seem to take almost no time at all to tell us that they are not going to help anyone about anything because coronavirus, why can't they properly think through the consequences of this CoP change?

Of course, we all know the answer, because they are run by a bunch of barely competent <redacted>.

eddddy

The banks will almost certainly allow "fuzzy matching" on the payee names - it's a very tried and tested concept.

So, for example, if your account is in the name of 'Mr Michael Clough', fuzzy matching might be tuned to accept:

• Mr M Clough
• Michael Clough
• Mick Clough
• Mr Mike Clough
• Mike Cluff

etc.

Because if somebody mis-typed 1 or 2 digits of "Michael Clough's" bank account, it's very, very unlikely that they would happen to stumble across somebody with a similar name like "Mike Cluff".

Similarly, if a scammer has made you believe that you are paying into an account belonging to "HMRC", it's actually likely to be a money mule's account - with a random account owner like Matthew Evans or George Phillips. So no scope for confusion.

(In the old days, scammers sometimes managed to open bank accounts with fake company names like 'Inlandia Revenura", but bank ID checking is much more thorough now. Passports, proofs of address etc  are needed, so scammers don't really succeed at that any more.)

tempus_fugit

It would certainly be a problem if it had to be exact in my case as some of my accounts have my full name as the account holder, and my name is longer than 18 characters, so many of the online forms won’t even accept my full name. So without some sort of fuzzy matching I simply would not be able to transfer money between my own accounts.

colsten

tempus_fugit said:

It would certainly be a problem if it had to be exact in my case as some of my accounts have my full name as the account holder, and my name is longer than 18 characters, so many of the online forms won’t even accept my full name. So without some sort of fuzzy matching I simply would not be able to transfer money between my own accounts.

You can ignore any messages about a mismatch between the payee name you chose and the actual account holder name. So you can still send money to "My Acct 1234" or whatever payee name that suits you.

kulath

No, I really, really can't pay my contractor.

I am certainly not going to ignore any messages about a mismatch, because I know how easy it is to transpose a couple of numbers in the account number. I know it sometimes comes up with a fuzzy match and says "did you mean", but not in this case.

I have emailed him, and he says "Thanks for letting us know this is happening. We have been trying to contact the bank to find out why this is happening without any luck. We have spent literally hours on hold without anyone answering and they have not responded to several emails. I guess they are short staffed and busy. We will continue trying.". "<johnDoe> is our trading name and the bank sends us all correspondence etc in this name. However our actual company name is XYZ(Place) Ltd and the bank obviously know this."

None of this actually helps.

kulath

colsten said:

Great example of what #CoronaBoredom can lead to.

Maybe, but I am actually trying to pay someone and the check fails.

colsten

kulath said:

No, I really, really can't pay my contractor.

You really, really can. If you just want to. 

The name mismatch does not stop you from setting up a payment to a given sort code and account number. 

kulath

Interestingly, when trying to set up payee details for a member of my family (as an experiment), it accepts "Jane Doe", "J Doe", "Jane Able Baker Doe", "J A B Doe", and even "Jane John Fred Doe" (obviously incorrect), and in each case it says it is a match, even though it says "Please use the exact name registered with this account.".

Zanderman

kulath said:

Interestingly, when trying to set up payee details for a member of my family (as an experiment), it accepts "Jane Doe", "J Doe", "Jane Able Baker Doe", "J A B Doe", and even "Jane John Fred Doe" (obviously incorrect), and in each case it says it is a match, even though it says "Please use the exact name registered with this account.".

Which is exactly why you are over thinking this.... 
An exact match is not required. 
Where the match is rejected it does NOT stop you making the payment, it is merely flagging up that the bank's computer says the name doesn't match sufficiently.  But you can over-ride this.
You make the final decision - as has been pointed out throughout this thread. 
Despite you saying 'none of this helps'

kulath

colsten said:

kulath said:

No, I really, really can't pay my contractor.

You really, really can. If you just want to. 

The name mismatch does not stop you from setting up a payment to a given sort code and account number. 

I am not going to pay someone that may or may not be the right account number. I really am not.

The whole point of CoP is to make sure you pay the right person without having to put a £1 payment through first to make sure you have got the right number.

Anyway, the original question was "how do I find out what name my bank is using for me". The contractor I am trying to pay can't find out what his right name is.