CoP and the £1 test deposit

jimjames

I've made a very large number of new payments over the last week. All had CoP verified and I didn't make any test payments. I can't see the point when the payee is verified

RG2015

jimjames said:

I've made a very large number of new payments over the last week. All had CoP verified and I didn't make any test payments. I can't see the point when the payee is verified

Precisely.

Furthermore, NatWest show the confirmation status in the list of payees. I have not seen any other bank do this.

On the other hand, on the payee details, NatWest sometimes redact some of the reference field with asterisks.

How am I meant to check that I have the correct reference?

They do this with the HMRC NICO payee 18 character reference which is a complete pain. 

phillw

Most of my payee's are me, which I set up ahead of time. So the first transaction is only going to be a £1 anyway.

For these I have a common format for the reference that includes the acronym of the bank where it's coming from and going to. Some banks don't list the reference either, I just wouldn't use one of those as a feeder account.

I used to use nationwide, but I switched a while back to virgin.

I don't tend to keep other peoples payee's in my list, in case I accidentally send them money. But occasionally I've made payments to credit cards etc, I don't bother sending them £1 and waiting for it to show up.

kaMelo

RG2015 said:

jimjames said:

I've made a very large number of new payments over the last week. All had CoP verified and I didn't make any test payments. I can't see the point when the payee is verified

Precisely.

Furthermore, NatWest show the confirmation status in the list of payees. I have not seen any other bank do this.

On the other hand, on the payee details, NatWest sometimes redact some of the reference field with asterisks.

How am I meant to check that I have the correct reference?

They do this with the HMRC NICO payee 18 character reference which is a complete pain. 

Where are you seeing asterisk replace the actual reference? I've never seen that anywhere.

RG2015

kaMelo said:

RG2015 said:

jimjames said:

I've made a very large number of new payments over the last week. All had CoP verified and I didn't make any test payments. I can't see the point when the payee is verified

Precisely.

Furthermore, NatWest show the confirmation status in the list of payees. I have not seen any other bank do this.

On the other hand, on the payee details, NatWest sometimes redact some of the reference field with asterisks.

How am I meant to check that I have the correct reference?

They do this with the HMRC NICO payee 18 character reference which is a complete pain. 

Where are you seeing asterisk replace the actual reference? I've never seen that anywhere.

Natwest have always done it in the payee list for payments to credit cards. It isn’t the full 16 digit reference redacted, only some of the digits in the middle.

The other one, as I mentioned, was the 18 digit reference for National Insurance payments. Digits 8 to 14 are replaced by asterisks.

kaMelo

RG2015 said:

kaMelo said:

RG2015 said:

jimjames said:

I've made a very large number of new payments over the last week. All had CoP verified and I didn't make any test payments. I can't see the point when the payee is verified

Precisely.

Furthermore, NatWest show the confirmation status in the list of payees. I have not seen any other bank do this.

On the other hand, on the payee details, NatWest sometimes redact some of the reference field with asterisks.

How am I meant to check that I have the correct reference?

They do this with the HMRC NICO payee 18 character reference which is a complete pain. 

Where are you seeing asterisk replace the actual reference? I've never seen that anywhere.

Natwest have always done it in the payee list for payments to credit cards. It isn’t the full 16 digit reference redacted, only some of the digits in the middle.

The other one, as I mentioned, was the 18 digit reference for National Insurance payments. Digits 8 to 14 are replaced by asterisks.

I've not got a NI payment payee but do have payee's set up to credit cards and every  one shows the full sixteen digit number as reference with not an asterisk in sight.

RG2015

kaMelo said:

RG2015 said:

kaMelo said:

RG2015 said:

jimjames said:

I've made a very large number of new payments over the last week. All had CoP verified and I didn't make any test payments. I can't see the point when the payee is verified

Precisely.

Furthermore, NatWest show the confirmation status in the list of payees. I have not seen any other bank do this.

On the other hand, on the payee details, NatWest sometimes redact some of the reference field with asterisks.

How am I meant to check that I have the correct reference?

They do this with the HMRC NICO payee 18 character reference which is a complete pain. 

Where are you seeing asterisk replace the actual reference? I've never seen that anywhere.

Natwest have always done it in the payee list for payments to credit cards. It isn’t the full 16 digit reference redacted, only some of the digits in the middle.

The other one, as I mentioned, was the 18 digit reference for National Insurance payments. Digits 8 to 14 are replaced by asterisks.

I've not got a NI payment payee but do have payee's set up to credit cards and every  one shows the full sixteen digit number as reference with not an asterisk in sight.

The asterisks are not only on the NatWest list of payees but also on my transaction list and official bank statement. 

masonic

I don't use a test payment if sending to another of my accounts in my full control and with CoP having been successful, unless I cannot rename or nickname the payee. With some banks I know a first payment that is large will always trigger a fraud check, and a test payment made >1 day in advance avoids this, so do the test payment if I know I'll need to make a large transfer in advance.

I still use a test payment when sending to another account not in my full control, for example a holding account operated by an organisation where the payment is routed by reference (what if I make a mistake in the reference or it gets trimmed/autocorrected, etc), or in some cases when paying a third party whose bank details I've received electronically, such as by email.

Molehusband

MACKEM99 said:

I put the nickname in the reference box when it's there and I still do small payment first

For most of my payments the "Reference" field has to have the account number that the payment is going to. Therefore this field cannot be used for anything else. If anything else is entered (eg nickname), the payment will fail and I risk losing money. Therefore it is essential for me to have this optional nickname field for me to document where the payment is going to..

Molehusband

Ergates said:

Molehusband said:

Ergates said:

Daliah said:

I rarely use CoP, for the reasons outlined by Reginald Molehusband.

Any payments to my own accounts use a fictitious payee name, in the format "My bank xxxx", where bank is obviously the (abbreviated) name of the receiving bank, and xxxx the last 4 digits of the receiving account number. I use this nomenclature even at banks which support nicknames (Natwest/RBS, VM) as I don't want to break my naming system. I only use the £1 method for accounts which require a Reference for the routing of payments, as sometimes I can't be sure I have got the correct Reference number. 

I do find CoP useful when paying a third party.

You always use CoP when setting up a new payee now.  You can choose ignore the reponse, but you can't choose not to use it.

No you're not always using CoP. You can only use CoP if the receiving account is registered for CoP and many of the accounts I use (especially those with Building Societies) are not registered for use with CoP. Secondly, from time to time CoP is not working due to technical problems and I get a message that the CoP check is temporarily down but the payee setup will continue bypassing CoP altogether.

You're still using CoP.  It may be that the first step in the CoP check determines that the FI that holds the account isn't registered with CoP, but that's still a CoP check.   

Ditto if, for some reason, the CoP system of the holding FI is down, you're still going through the process.

Nonsense. When the CoP system is down or my bank cannot connect to it, I cannot use it. Therefore my bank asks me if I want to go ahead and bypass CoP to which I normally say "yes". So I'm not using CoP.

Similarly if the account I am paying is not registered with CoP I am told this and similarly I will be asked if I want to bypass CoP and again I normally answer "yes". So again I'm not using CoP.

Since the majority of my payments are going to accounts not registered through CoP I am not using CoP to set up and make them

This scenario is similar to if you go to your car to travel somewhere and it won't start because it has a fault. Therefore if you still want to travel you will need to travel using another means (eg public transport or taxi) because you cannot use your car. You can't then claim that you are travelling using your car.