Confirmation of Payee - is it as poor for everyone else?

Notepad_Phil

colsten said:

phillw said:

Sending £1 first and then a larger amount can work, it can cause your account to be blocked because fraudsters do the same thing.

I have done this countless times over the years, with all sorts of UK banks and building societies. Never had a problem. That might be because it was in the main accounts in my own name. It might be different if the receiving account name is not the same, or at least very similar, to the sending account. 

Countless times for me too - plus also from mine to accounts in Mrs Notepad's name and plenty where there was no COP in place between the source and destination banks/building societies so the source would have no idea of what the destination account name actually was.

If fraudsters were really doing this and banks were managing to stop them by picking up a £1 transfer followed by a larger one then surely they (the fraudster) would be the first to pick this up and just start transferring it in one go.

RG2015

phillw said:

robatwork said:
Not sure CoP would help much with an investment scam where they are using a mule account.

They will have had to open an account with the name they've given you, which depending on the bank could be quite a lengthy process.
The biggest problem is that it's not supported by all banks.
Sending £1 first and then a larger amount can work, it can cause your account to be blocked because fraudsters do the same thing.

This may very well be true, but can you cite any evidence for the two elements in your statement?

naedanger

colsten said:

phillw said:

Sending £1 first and then a larger amount can work, it can cause your account to be blocked because fraudsters do the same thing.

I have done this countless times over the years, with all sorts of UK banks and building societies. Never had a problem. That might be because it was in the main accounts in my own name. It might be different if the receiving account name is not the same, or at least very similar, to the sending account. 

I have done similar. And very occasionally when very large sums have been involved I have just told the recipient I would be sending a small test payment and they should tell the amount and when it was received, (so they couldn't mistakenly give me a false assurance since they don't know the amount).

Armorica

robatwork said:

Armorica said:

Not really - the fraudster will receive the money.  It'll protect if someone is pretending to be your solicitor. It won't help against investment or romance scams.

Do you know what the figures are for the proportion of scams that are romance / investment / APP / email interception? Not sure CoP would help much with an investment scam where they are using a mule account.

Yes - it's quite high. Investment scams have increased in particular. Eskbanker has kindly provided the link to the UK Finance report, which I read the day it comes out.

Beyond that, sending £1 in advance can help check you've got the details set up correctly (misdirected payments) but distinctly less helpful for fraud (the fraudster will confirm receipt of the £1).

Sending £1 and then a higher amount isn't that likely to be blocked on the sending ("victim") side, but could see the second payment blocked on the receiving ("fraudster") side. There are various other patterns that banks used to detect accounts that may be receiving fraudulent funds. I don't think it's helpful to describe these in detail on the forum - as it just acts as a guide for the less competent fraudsters to know what to do to reduce the risk of detection. (The competent fraudsters have already worked it out.)

Ballard

I've found this useful whenever I've paid someone new. I paid a friend for some work they did this morning and didn't have to mess about sending test payments or hoping that I'd typed the number correctly. It told me who he was upfront. I know that he's got the money. No worries.

J_B

Thought I'd share my experiences today

Donald Norris(let's call him)(the swear filter won't let me call him the short name for Richard!) did some work for us. He sent a hand written bill and stapled a pay-in slip to it from Nat West.

It clearly said D Norris (business account) on the pay in slip.

I entered all the details from the slip into my Santander account and it came back with an error message saying "did you mean Donald Norris Esq?"

As others have said ..... I thought it was supposed to be foolproof, not foolish!

Ho hum!

RG2015

I paid a tradesman yesterday (NatWest to Barclays) and it was very reassuring when the cop it’s a match came up. I have found that all banks are different, both paying and receiving.

My paying in slip has Mr J Smith on it but it if I put in J Smith, it either comes up as not a match or do you mean John Smith? 

IvanOpinion

Recently I had to pay someone some money.  It took me a while to work out that I needed to include all the following
- title
- initial from first name (not full first name)
- initial from first middle name (not full middle name)
- skip second middle name/initial
- full last name
How is someone meant to know what name a third party used when setting up their account?

RG2015

IvanOpinion said:

Recently I had to pay someone some money.  It took me a while to work out that I needed to include all the following
- title
- initial from first name (not full first name)
- initial from first middle name (not full middle name)
- skip second middle name/initial
- full last name
How is someone meant to know what name a third party used when setting up their account?

Which bank was this?

eskbanker

IvanOpinion said:
Recently I had to pay someone some money.  It took me a while to work out that I needed to include all the following
- title
- initial from first name (not full first name)
- initial from first middle name (not full middle name)
- skip second middle name/initial
- full last name
How is someone meant to know what name a third party used when setting up their account?

CoP is intended to give clues for close matches, as shown in J_B's 'Norris' example above, so if both banks have implemented the protocol in full then you shouldn't need to need to resort to repetitive guesswork.