sending money to icorrect payee

phillw

Section62 said:
So I had unwittingly made a payment to an incorrect account, not because of an error on my part, but because of a "system feed request" error by a bank.

That sounds like you switched an old account to nationwide, paid the old account from nationwide and then the payment got redirected back to nationwide. Nationwide will then have been told to stop by the old bank to send new payments to your new account.

Which is what is being suggested here. It's possible that the receiving bank had some system error that caused it to think the destination account had been part of a switch.

If what the OP is saying is true, then discussing it here is pointless. Make a complaint to the bank, see what happens. I've dealt with too many people in my life who will argue their case strongly whether it was their fault, the fault of the person who gave their details or the sending or receiving bank. In one application, we ended up recording every single user input that they made & they would still swear that they entered the correct details.

Certainly the accusation "A badly written programme can be biased to the payees name and treat the sort and account details as secondary" is ludicrous, they wouldn't last the day. Payments to bank accounts don't match on name at all, which is why confirmation of payee was necessary in the first place.

born_again

enthusiasticsaver said:

Have you paid this person previously?

Nationwide uses COPS and as others have said normally the only option is match, partial match or not found.  If you put in the correct account details and COPS came back with a match I am not sure how it could have gone to some random account with another bank entirely.  Banks do not keep account numbers of accounts held with other institutions. 

You are right of course in that you should always double check payee details before finally sending money.  

Banks do keep "Major Beneficiary" details on system. So if you are paying say HMRC, or a utility bill the details will be pre populated by the bank.
But OP has never answered this from back on P1 "Is this a person or a business?"

If it was bad computer programming. Then this would not be the 1st time this has ever cropped up, given the millions of payments made via Nationwide each year.

penners324

You must have used the pre filled verified business account to set them up as opposed to the standard method

Section62

phillw said:

Section62 said:
So I had unwittingly made a payment to an incorrect account, not because of an error on my part, but because of a "system feed request" error by a bank.

That sounds like you switched an old account to nationwide, paid the old account from nationwide and then the payment got redirected back to nationwide. Nationwide will then have been told to stop by the old bank to send new payments to your new account.

No, nothing like that.  The account at bank 'C' is a savings account.  The "system feed request" happened at some point before I made the payment.

Bank 'B' had given Nationwide an alternative sort code and account number to use which meant the payment would never have reached bank 'C'.  The money was bounced around bank 'B's systems for a week before being returned to my Nationwide account.  (I suspect given enough time the OP may get their money back, the process may involve human intervention so won't necessarily be quick)

However, the Nationwide CSA (only repeating what they themselves had been told) said the "system feed request" was effectively the same system which would be used to redirect payments where current accounts had been switched.

The principal point being that Nationwide can (and do) change payee details in response to "system feed requests", and there appears to be little validation (or notification to the customer) when these requests are made.

phillw said:

Which is what is being suggested here. It's possible that the receiving bank had some system error that caused it to think the destination account had been part of a switch.

Kind of.  If the payee switched their account from HSBC to the new bank then, as I understand it, the new bank would be responsible for telling other banks to send payments to the new account.  Within the 'system' there is a data linkage between the old account number and the new account number.  I think this is a potential route for Nationwide to be aware of the old HSBC account, even if the OP knew nothing about it themselves.

Which is why I wouldn't discount the possibility of a system error which meant that when the OP sent a payment to the payees new account, Nationwide's payments system somehow picked up the details of the HSBC account and sent the payment there instead.

That probably sounds implausible, and it would have done to me, but my experience with bank 'B' suggests that sometimes an implausible scenario turns out to be just what has happened.

AmityNeon

Section62 said:

However, the Nationwide CSA (only repeating what they themselves had been told) said the "system feed request" was effectively the same system which would be used to redirect payments where current accounts had been switched.

The principal point being that Nationwide can (and do) change payee details in response to "system feed requests", and there appears to be little validation (or notification to the customer) when these requests are made.

As far as I'm aware, payment redirections happen behind the scenes and do not change the details of saved payees. These "system feed requests" sound like they could be even further behind the scenes if complaint handlers aren't even aware their own bank sent them. How can Bank B deny involvement and accuse you of getting the details wrong, after what Nationwide discovered? How have you been able to complain to Bank B if you don't have a direct banking relationship with them?

Section62

I don't want to hijack the OP's thread with my issue, I only posted about it because I can see from my own experiences that the things they are being told are 'impossible' might in fact be possible. So I will talk about this further in case it helps the OP's situation.

AmityNeon said:

Section62 said:

However, the Nationwide CSA (only repeating what they themselves had been told) said the "system feed request" was effectively the same system which would be used to redirect payments where current accounts had been switched.

The principal point being that Nationwide can (and do) change payee details in response to "system feed requests", and there appears to be little validation (or notification to the customer) when these requests are made.

As far as I'm aware, payment redirections happen behind the scenes and do not change the details of saved payees.

Fortunately I had taken a screenshot the payee details when I last made a succesful payment to my account at bank 'C'.  This could be compared with the payee details for the failed payment, and with the then current saved payee details. They had been changed.  Nationwide investigated and confirmed that saved payee details used in the front-end can be changed by a "system feed request", and this is what had happened. They said it was similar to what happens with the switching process.

AmityNeon said:

These "system feed requests" sound like they could be even further behind the scenes if complaint handlers aren't even aware their own bank sent them.

My general experience is bank's CS teams are set up to deal with 'normal' problems.  If anything out of the normal happens they try to fit it into one of their known 'normals'. I.e. the rapid application of Occam's razor. Move on to the next customer.

I was really lucky to get a very good complaint handler at Nationwide who dedicated themselves to finding out what had happened and figuring out a way forward. They were simply brilliant.  They wanted to have answers and weren't prepared to stop until they got them.  This is atypical of bank CS staff, I've found.

AmityNeon said:

How can Bank B deny involvement and accuse you of getting the details wrong, after what Nationwide discovered?

This is why it is still a live complaint.  Bank 'B' eventually accepted it was them that sent the payment, given the evidence they couldn't do anything else.  The hows and whys are still being discussed.

AmityNeon said:

How have you been able to complain to Bank B if you don't have a direct banking relationship with them?

I also have accounts with bank 'B'. Initially when this bank was identified as the source of the payment, my first thought was that they had my Nationwide account details in relation to those accounts. So I complained on the basis of being a bank 'B' customer.

AmityNeon

Section62 said:

I don't want to hijack the OP's thread with my issue, I only posted about it because I can see from my own experiences that the things they are being told are 'impossible' might in fact be possible. So I will talk about this further in case it helps the OP's situation.

Considering the primary point of this thread rests on the contested claim of whether saved payee details can plausibly be changed by someone other than the user who created the payee, your experience is relevant, illuminating, and probably quite rare (considering the utter lack of results when searching for "system feed request" or "system feed requests").

phillw

AmityNeon said:
and probably quite rare (considering the utter lack of results when searching for "system feed request" or "system feed requests").

You're assuming that when the person investigated and came back with the "system feed requests" story, they were telling the truth and not just making it up.

It would appear there is a central database

https://www.wearepay.uk/what-we-do/switching-services/the-bulk-payment-redirection-service/

Details of which are pretty scarce.

https://www.fca.org.uk/publication/research/anp-research.pdf

Neil49

k_man said:

Yorkshirerover said:

The question to ask is surely how did Nationwide get the details to pay into the wrong account ??...Not from me...when I set the correct payee  again I checked the detail before sending payment which I will do now every time
The original instructions were checked and found to be correct...you cannot get 16 digits wrong and then find out it refers to a local bank 
No phone nos involved
A badly written programme can be biased to the payees name and treat the sort and account details as secondary

After the payment had been reported as not having arrived....I found out that the sort code belonged to a local bank...after telling my payee this info she confirmed they did once bank with the HSBC...but as it was a long time ago she didnt have the acc no

The only possible way this acc detail was produced is from the Nationwide....remember the payees name was always correct even though the sort and acc nos were not

Just for some clarity, as this complex...
Did you mean 16 digits? Or 14 (6 for sort and 8 for account)?

16 is the number of digits for a Debit or credit card.

How close/similar were the correct, and incorret details?

Finally, was the Payee name a person's name, or a business?

You beat me to it when questioning the number of digits. 

Something doesn't seem right about this whole saga. 

Section62

phillw said:

AmityNeon said:
and probably quite rare (considering the utter lack of results when searching for "system feed request" or "system feed requests").

You're assuming that when the person investigated and came back with the "system feed requests" story, they were telling the truth and not just making it up.

Why would they lie?  The individual involved was aware that by then I was gathering information so that I could submit a complaint to the Ombudsman if bank 'B' continued the line they were taking.  They knew that if they were "just making it up" there was a very high risk of being found out.

Bank 'B' are aware that Nationwide say the payee changes were made as a result of a "system feed request" and have not disputed this point (to date).  If this were something Nationwide were making up I would have expected bank 'B' to have pointed that out at the first opportunity.  But anything is possible.  I'll update the thread if I ever find out.