treatment received from Santander

jimbo49

to eskbanker and k12479
as i said, how did Santander know it wasn't my mum who was making the transaction? i had logged in to the account using her details and it obviously wasn't a video call. as for PoA, i have that anyway but it shouldn't have mattered at the time for the reason i just said. on top of that, there was absolutely no warning at all about the account being blocked, it just happened, instantaneously. it was even worse because no contact was made with my mum or me to verify whether the transaction was genuine or not. this is the worst thing. no check done. total block. not even an explanation. i had to ask Santander what was going on and why.
how did Santander know it was me accessing the account and not my mum? i was logged in to her account with her details, followed all on-screen prompts and answered all questions. the block just suddenly happened part way through the transaction.
the worrying thing here is, surely, that Santander (and maybe other banks?) could do the same thing to innumerable people. if that is the case and there is no guarantee that after an account is unblocked that it wont be blocked again, how can people manage their own money in their own accounts? you cant even contact Santander and tell them what you want to do so that they prevent the blocking action because the customer services department do not have access to the security/fraud department! all in all, this seems like a total !!!!!! up, where Santander is more afraid of getting into a row over it's conduct than protecting customers accounts. if that wasn't the case, a simple phone call could have prevented all the problems. if erring on the side of caution was the best bet, the 'suspected fraudulent transaction' could have been blocked rather than the whole account. i feel that that was OTT!

[Deleted User]

jimbo49 said:

to eskbanker and k12479
as i said, how did Santander know it wasn't my mum who was making the transaction?

As others have said, most likely behavioural patterns.

But they don't tell you what triggers they use - especially as they work.

Alexland

jimbo49 said:

if erring on the side of caution was the best bet, the 'suspected fraudulent transaction' could have been blocked rather than the whole account. i feel that that was OTT!

If one of my banks' suspicious pattern algorithm suspected that someone was doing a fraudulent activity on my account then I would want them to block all access rather than allow the person to go on to perform lower value transactions that might work. At the end of the day you were not appointed POA so your mum sharing login details to access the account was almost certainly a breach of the terms and conditions. Just be glad they didn't issue notice to close the account. If your mum needs this help then get her to register you as POA as that's the correct process.

Thrugelmir

jimbo49 said:

to eskbanker and k12479
as i said, how did Santander know it wasn't my mum who was making the transaction? i had logged in to the account using her details and it obviously wasn't a video call. as for PoA, i have that anyway but it shouldn't have mattered at the time for the reason i just said. on top of that, there was absolutely no warning at all about the account being blocked, it just happened, instantaneously. it was even worse because no contact was made with my mum or me to verify whether the transaction was genuine or not. this is the worst thing. no check done. total block. not even an explanation. i had to ask Santander what was going on and why.
how did Santander know it was me accessing the account and not my mum? i was logged in to her account with her details, followed all on-screen prompts and answered all questions. the block just suddenly happened part way through the transaction.
the worrying thing here is, surely, that Santander (and maybe other banks?) could do the same thing to innumerable people. if that is the case and there is no guarantee that after an account is unblocked that it wont be blocked again, how can people manage their own money in their own accounts? you cant even contact Santander and tell them what you want to do so that they prevent the blocking action because the customer services department do not have access to the security/fraud department! all in all, this seems like a total !!!!!! up, where Santander is more afraid of getting into a row over it's conduct than protecting customers accounts. if that wasn't the case, a simple phone call could have prevented all the problems. if erring on the side of caution was the best bet, the 'suspected fraudulent transaction' could have been blocked rather than the whole account. i feel that that was OTT!

 The worrying thing here is that you were in the wrong. Yet waffle on and on. Most people go about gaining access in the proper manner. Not do their own thing and then start complaining when they've been caught out. The situation had no need to arise in the first place.  

colsten

jimbo49 said:

to eskbanker and k12479
as i said, how did Santander know it wasn't my mum who was making the transaction? i had logged in to the account using her details and it obviously wasn't a video call. as for PoA, i have that anyway but it shouldn't have mattered at the time for the reason i just said. on top of that, there was absolutely no warning at all about the account being blocked, it just happened, instantaneously. it was even worse because no contact was made with my mum or me to verify whether the transaction was genuine or not. this is the worst thing. no check done. total block. not even an explanation. i had to ask Santander what was going on and why.
how did Santander know it was me accessing the account and not my mum? i was logged in to her account with her details, followed all on-screen prompts and answered all questions. the block just suddenly happened part way through the transaction.
the worrying thing here is, surely, that Santander (and maybe other banks?) could do the same thing to innumerable people. if that is the case and there is no guarantee that after an account is unblocked that it wont be blocked again, how can people manage their own money in their own accounts? you cant even contact Santander and tell them what you want to do so that they prevent the blocking action because the customer services department do not have access to the security/fraud department! all in all, this seems like a total !!!!!! up, where Santander is more afraid of getting into a row over it's conduct than protecting customers accounts. if that wasn't the case, a simple phone call could have prevented all the problems. if erring on the side of caution was the best bet, the 'suspected fraudulent transaction' could have been blocked rather than the whole account. i feel that that was OTT!

You have no proof that Santander blocked the account because you used it. Most likely they blocked it for other reasons, and they did so absolutely correctly, as has already been discussed. They might also do it again in future, regardless of whether you or your mum use the account. All banks carry out checks, and all banks block accounts if their checks find something they feel needs further investigations.

As has also already been discussed, the only potential issue you could have with Santander is the speed, or lack of it, at which the block was lifted. 

You / your mum can avoid getting blocked if you / she  does her transactions over the phone - provided she / you can pass the ID check which obviously Santander need to carry out. For larger amounts, transfers over the phone can take extra time as Santander will normally make extra checks.

You seem to be overly emotional about the matter. 

k12479

jimbo49 said:

...as i said, how did Santander know it wasn't my mum who was making the transaction?

They don't know and they didn't need to know. What they do know, and anyone reading your post can see, is that unusual activity occurred on your mother's account that is not in keeping with how she has previously operated her account.

Your complaints are largely irrelevant. You have done something you weren't supposed to, that looks highly suspicious and are complaining that Santander are treating highly suspicious activity as...highly suspicious. Had you followed the correct procedure, the transaction may have gone through without issue, or it may have been flagged but easier to resolve.

Of course you think it's 'OTT', because being involved you can't see that the other possible alternatives Santander have to consider are 'mother coerced', 'scammer gained access' or 'son ripped off mother'.

bowlhead99

jimbo49 said:

as i said, how did Santander know it wasn't my mum who was making the transaction? i had logged in to the account using her details and it obviously wasn't a video call. 

They didn't know. A fraudster who had stolen your mum's passwords / security questions would also not be using a video call, but you would still hope that if the person logged on to the account was doing out-of-the ordinary transactions there would be some kind of clever process to detect that activity despite the correct username and password being used.

as for PoA, i have that anyway but it shouldn't have mattered at the time for the reason i just said.

If you are not the accountholder and want to make transactions on the account, of course it should matter whether you have PoA.   If you're authorised to do things for your mum, the bank needs to know this, so you are not treated like an outsider. and will instead have your own logon credentials.

All banks have thought this through properly. If you are PoA and want to make transactions, the best solution is not going to be: just 'borrow' mum's credentials and operate the account remotely, pretending to be her, thinking 'ah there's no video or fingerprint recognition so they'll just assume it's my mum and it will be fine'.   That's not how the banks want it to work, because the way a bad guy would work is stealing the security info and thinking 'ah there's no video or fingerprint recognition so they'll just assume it's my victim and it will be fine'. 

 on top of that, there was absolutely no warning at all about the account being blocked, it just happened, instantaneously.  

That seems normal, as usually if a financial institution suspects some potential crime or unusual activity, they do not want to 'tip off' the suspected person, or give them more chances to try other amounts or destination accounts before interrupting the process.

 it was even worse because no contact was made with my mum or me to verify whether the transaction was genuine or not. this is the worst thing. no check done. total block. not even an explanation. i had to ask Santander what was going on and why.

This is normal and while it causes occasional inconvenience it is quite efficient.  If they cut off the account - if the transactions were genuinely being done by the accountholder, the accountholder would contact them quite quickly to get it all reinstated. If the transactions were not genuinely being done by the accountholder (but by someone who wanted to do financial harm to the accountholder), that bad guy would probably not contact them to try to get the account up and running, they would just move to the next victim on the list, in which case it is OK for the account to remain locked until the customer can be made aware of the situation.

how did Santander know it was me accessing the account and not my mum? i was logged in to her account with her details, followed all on-screen prompts and answered all questions. the block just suddenly happened part way through the transaction.

As above, this is normal. They imposed a block based on some automated system for recognising unusual activity. The fact that you used her correct logon info and answered the questions wouldn't mean they should never block you, because a real criminal would also use the login info and answer the questions.

the worrying thing here is, surely, that Santander (and maybe other banks?) could do the same thing to innumerable people.

Yes, banks will take action to try to minimise potential fraud being done to people like your mum.

 if that is the case and there is no guarantee that after an account is unblocked that it wont be blocked again, how can people manage their own money in their own accounts? 

I manage my own money in my own accounts fine. If a transaction is declined occasionally I contact the security department. Fortunately I don't think I've ever had a total lock. If I did, I would call them up to sort it out.

If it had got locked when I was doing a genuine transaction and I'm genuinely 'me', hopefully it wouldn't be too hard to get it running again. 

If it wasn't me who had caused it to get locked, hopefully it would be difficult for that person who wasn't me to get it up and running again.

you cant even contact Santander and tell them what you want to do so that they prevent the blocking action because the customer services department do not have access to the security/fraud department! 

Some banks do allow you to flag things on the account temporarily, e.g. "I will be overseas for a couple of weeks so in that time period please don't think  my Spanish airport and supermarket purchases are suspicious transactions". However, some banks don't support that. 

I would expect / hope that it's common that they won't allow the customer service team to accept your request you to completely 'prevent blocking action', because otherwise vulnerable people may just say 'turn off that system please because I want an easy life' and open themselves up to losing their life savings. 

However if you have tried a transaction, and confirmed to the fraud department that it was genuinely you doing it, it's unlikely that they would mark the exact same thing as a suspicious transaction and block it again the next time.

 all in all, this seems like a total !!!!!! up, where Santander is more afraid of getting into a row over it's conduct than protecting customers accounts. 

It doesn't seem to me that its a !! up, it seems that Santander acted quickly to prevent some account activity which they thought was suspicious. Perhaps they were heavy-handed in doing so, but it did genuinely protect the customer's account . It stopped someone that was not actually your mum, moving money out of the Santander account! 

The fact that you hoped to pretend to be your mum and use her credentials to operate her account to move her money, and were thwarted, is proof that the account was protected, no ?      

And presumably the slow time to get it reinstated was because you were not known to the bank as being authorised to act for your mum to get things running again (which is not the bank's fault), and your mum was ill and couldn't work the computer or have quick and effective phone conversations or provide documentation etc (which is not the bank's fault).

 if erring on the side of caution was the best bet, the 'suspected fraudulent transaction' could have been blocked rather than the whole account. i feel that that was OTT!

But if it *was* the case of someone doing something criminal or fraudulent, and they had stopped the suspected fraudulent transaction of £10k and kept the account open to make other transactions... so then the criminal had put through four successful smaller transactions of £1k instead before they eventually blocked the whole account, they have only stopped £6k of fraud and your mum still had the other £4k stolen.

In that scenario, you would be complaining that Santander thought there was something suspicious on your mum's account but still let someone steal 4x £1000 after identifying something out of the ordinary. You would be up in arms about that. Why didn't they just block the whole account, the !!!!!s , you'd be saying