Nat West

missile

RG2015 said:

I still find NatWest’s response to the complaint quite bizarre. Three days is an incredibly short space of time for them to have investigated the claim and suspended the account.

Does this mean that I could complain about anyone that I paid and get their account suspended in 3 days based on a pack of lies?

His BACS payment was made on 08th and my account was suspended on the 10th. It appears NW instantly suspend my account on receipt of an unsubstantiated claim by a third party's bank.

We are only guessing he claimed he was scammed(?). I do not have access to my NW account to verify their advice. However when I made a BACS transfer today from my Santander account there were clear warnings and if the transaction was a scam I was unlikely to receive any repayment.

I find it quite surprising that NW would treat a long term client with such contempt and refuse to even discuss the issue and problems they have created for me.

eskbanker

missile said:

"But bank transfers aren't equivalent to an online marketplace that can set its own rules about how it defines 'buyer' and 'seller' roles and sets up policies accordingly."

It was a Bank Transfer by BACS. Buyer and seller is not the correct terminology. It is Payee and Recipient.

It was you who introduced the analogy of buyers and sellers in online marketplaces, so I was pointing out that such terms belong in that environment, not in banking, so it would seem you now agree.  And if you feel the need to correct terminology, perhaps worth noting that the payments you're referring to aren't "BACS" but Faster Payments transfers, and that payee is the recipient of a payment, so it's either sender and recipient, or payer and payee....

missile said:

Banks make their own policies, but they do not set the rules. It will be interesting to see whether the ombudsman agrees with you that NW have acted responsibly. 

3 days is a ridiculously short time frame for them to demand a response, especially when they allow themselves 5 days for their own investigation.

I thought BACS was the safest way to accept payment. Seems anyone could claim money back by saying it was fraud.

Effectively yes, but that's why the banks seek to resolve the matter quickly by conducting a swift investigation once they have the pertinent facts in front of them.  If you'd sent money to someone who you felt was scamming you, to the extent of being able to convince your bank of this, how long would you be prepared to wait for them to act?

flaneurs_lobster

Two general points from the above narrative cause me surprise. 

Firstly, that a person can make a faster payment to a person and then complain to their bank that this payment was made as a result of a scam and this will result in a bank-to-bank exchange that suspends the payees bank account.

Secondly, that the above can happen when the amount involved is £8.

It can't be that simple, can it? Otherwise there is a new form of harassment just waiting to be exploited. 

RG2015

missile said:

RG2015 said:

I understand that marketplace is a platform facilitated by Facebook/Meta and presumably their Ts&Cs indemnify them against any financial claims. (ie they accept no responsibility for any disputes)

Therefore this scenario has nothing to do with Meta and could have happened with any financial transaction dispute.

Surely NatWest must have substantially more evidence than one party's word that any wrongdoing has occurred. Otherwise this action by NatWest could happen to anyone without any cause. Or alternatively, NatWest have grossly overreacted and could be liable for a substantial compensation claim.

I am not doubting the original post in any way but it does appear as though I am missing something.

I thought my bank would defend MY interests, not freeze several thousand pounds of my money to cover a trifling sum of £8. 

I know nothing more than I have posted here. When I phoned NW, they refused to discuss.
This is the relevant passage from message I received:

"Dear Mr XXX,
You may already have received a text message from us, advising that we have placed a temporary restriction on your accounts. This is because we have received a report in relation to payment(s) into your account.
The payment(s) in question are outlined below and may have been partially / fully withdrawn from your account, pending further information:

BAC     (Removed by Forum Team)                              8.00   8FEB  

To enable us to resolve this, please respond to the following questions within 3 working days from the date of this email. Please note that, in the absence of a full response within that timeframe (including copies of relevant documents you may have in your possession), a decision will be made about the payments without information provided by you.  Please also provide any other information you believe to be relevant to the payment.  Any information provided will be processed in accordance with our privacy policy which is available on our website." 

Giving me only 3 days to gather evidence and respond seems overly dictatorial, harsh and authoritarian.

It has suddenly struck me that the message from NatWest looks odd. I hope the NatWest email is not a scam.

missile

The message went to my junk mail box and I might have missed it.
It struck me as odd too, in their e mail they ask for my full name and account details.

Details about you:

1.1         Your Account Number and Sort Code

(OR 10-digit Customer Number, OR 16-digit debit card number)  

1.2         Personal Customers only:

Full Name

Date of Birth

I contacted their social media site and after wasting an hour, I phoned NW and they confirmed e mail was genuine, but refused to discuss.

missile

Guilty until I prove myself innocent, and this was the kicker >
** Please note that you will still be able to withdraw wages or benefits via branch with valid ID during this time. **

eskbanker

missile said:

Many thanks for your condescending comments.
In your world banks and bankers can do no wrong. 

I make no apology for correcting someone who was erroneously trying to correct me, but just to repeat a point posted earlier that was perhaps too subtle, I'm not defending the banks here as such, just trying to explain what's happening and why.

For what it's worth, I agree that it's over-zealous to freeze a well-funded account in order to ring-fence £8 (again, something I stated earlier), but see this overall situation as an unintended consequence of the measures being taken to protect those being scammed.

flaneurs_lobster said:

Two general points from the above narrative cause me surprise. 

Firstly, that a person can make a faster payment to a person and then complain to their bank that this payment was made as a result of a scam and this will result in a bank-to-bank exchange that suspends the payees bank account.

Secondly, that the above can happen when the amount involved is £8.

It can't be that simple, can it? Otherwise there is a new form of harassment just waiting to be exploited. 

As posted earlier, I agree that there ought to be more checks and balances, but ultimately it takes time to establish both sides of a story, and when there are genuine scams, time will generally be of the essence, so I can see why the initial response is for the two banks to communicate and for the recipient's one to take actions to prevent the funds being removed.  Obviously such actions ought to be proportionate (which doesn't seem to be the case here) but also temporary, and hence the above remarks about investigating quickly - we don't know the degree of questioning that OP has objected to, but it shouldn't be difficult to understand the urgency.

There does seem to be a transparency issue too, in that this mechanism isn't visibly published anywhere that I'm aware of, perhaps for valid reasons, and hence OP and others being under the impression that faster payments are irreversible - the APP scam reimbursement code has received publicity, but I don't recall MSE (or any other site) making it clear that its implementation is almost guaranteed to result in collateral damage when there are false positives such as OP's.

missile

In your world,
Banks can make their own "rules"
It is fair to assume guilt until client proves innocence
CEOs are entitled to obscene bonuses and get knighthoods

In my world,
It will be interesting to see whether the Ombudsman agrees with you.

p00hsticks

RG2015 said:

I still find NatWest’s response to the complaint quite bizarre. Three days is an incredibly short space of time for them to have investigated the claim and suspended the account.

But in cases of alleged fraud, my understanding from reading these boards is that it doesn't happen that way round. The account is suspended first and only then does the claim get investigated.

eskbanker

missile said:

Banks can make their own "rules"

To a certain extent, yes - it's a heavily regulated sector, but there remains considerable discretion beyond what's defined in legislation and regulation.  This is one of the concerns expressed by the Treasury Select Committee (see earlier link), i.e. that they expect the Payment Services Regulator to be controlling this, rather than delegating it to Pay UK, which is closer to a trade association.

missile said:

It is fair to assume guilt until client proves innocence

In the context of measures intended to protect against genuine fraud, it's the least worst option but is undoubtedly currently open to abuse.

missile said:

CEOs are entitled to obscene bonuses and get knighthoods

No point in rising to that particular bait!

missile said:

In my world,
It will be interesting to see whether the Ombudsman agrees with you.

Agreed - as above I'm not claiming that NatWest's actions are proportionate, so it will be revealing to see what FOS makes of it.  Chances are that there will already be similar cases on their decision database....

missile said:

Guilty until I prove myself innocent, and this was the kicker >
** Please note that you will still be able to withdraw wages or benefits via branch with valid ID during this time. **

Didn't pick up on this earlier, but to me that signifies that NatWest are being reasonable in ensuring that customers subject to such investigations are able to access money to live on until resolved.  I suspect you'll disagree....