Bank asking dodgy questions

Bee175

DullGreyGuy said:

Bee175 said:

DullGreyGuy said:

Bee175 said:

The bank then proceeded to ask me for the senders full name and date of birth before completing the transaction. They already had his name, but I was pretty cautious about the idea of giving them my friends DOB.

Surely they are not allowed to ask me for someone else's personal details?

I refused to give them the details, and asked them to return the money to the sender, which they did right away.

I have since told them that I believe what they asked of me was borderline illegal, and they have now stopped talking to me 

What do others think about them asking me for someone else's personal details?

How would they have his name? They'd have the name on the account which may or may not be his name or could be an incomplete name.

They are perfectly entitled to ask you questions, banks are legally required to do sanctions and counter terrorism checks on transactions and the reality is there are a few thousand people on the UK Government published list (more if you also have to comply with US and EU sanctions) and there is going to be more than one person in the world with the same first and surname. The sanctions list inc middle names and DoB so having these to check makes it much easier to determine if your friend "Oleg" is one of the 70 or so that are subject to asset freeze or not. 

If they cannot trust the name given them by the sender's, they should question the sender's bank, not me. 

Same with DOB. They should check with the sender's bank.

They surely cannot expect me to know everyone's DOB and middle names? That would be totally unreasonable. How would they know I'm not lying? My bank would not have my friends DOB to compare too, unless the sender's bank are willing to share it with them. They're talking to the wrong guy by asking me.

"They're perfectly entitled to ask me questions".
I couldn't agree more, but no point asking me stuff I simply won't know. 

All they should be asking me about is whether I'm expecting the payment, or have requested the payment. Beyond that it's up to them to check out the sender and his bank, or at least that's how it has always worked in the past when other banks have put a payment on review.

They can ask you, and your legitimate answer can be "I dont know", its only when you get a bit silly and say "its against the law for you to ask me" or some such thing that you are then likely to have issues either because it raises red flags that you are trying to cover something up or you get flagged as an antagonistic customer. 

If you have asked for the payment or not is irrelevant to if the sender is a sanctioned person

I didn't say anything about it being potentially illegal until after the situation was resolved and my friend had his money back. 

Bee175

Brie said:

Data protection act states:

Everyone responsible for using personal data has to follow strict rules called ‘data protection principles’. They must make sure the information is:

• used fairly, lawfully and transparently
• used for specified, explicit purposes
• used in a way that is adequate, relevant and limited to only what is necessary
• accurate and, where necessary, kept up to date
• kept for no longer than is necessary
• handled in a way that ensures appropriate security, including protection against unlawful or unauthorised processing, access, loss, destruction or damage

Frankly I agree that a DoB isn't relevant unless as someone suggested it's to eliminate the payment coming from some illegal source.  But all they would know is that Dodgy Joe is known to use 1/1/90 as his DoB.  And as long as the OP didn't give that date they should be happy.  So presumably one could give any random date and the bank isn't going to know if it's right or wrong as they would have no way to find out.  Seems a pretty daft thing overall though & I would certainly be asking why it's relevant.

All sounds logical and sensible👍

Bee175

TheBanker said:

Out of interest what type of payment was this? It would be more usual for this type of query to be raised for payments coming from abroad, than from other UK banks. 

I wonder if the person you were speaking to has got the wrong end of the stick. Even if you gave a DoB I don't see how it would help since you could be making it up. I wonder if actually something else was needed (like an explanation of what the payment was for) and the person on chat got confused?

It was a n online banking payment UK to UK. His bank is The Halifax.

I guess them getting confused is a possibility.

Bee175

wiseonesomeofthetime said:

Vortigern said:

Which bank is this?

Simple answer to both questions is "I don't know" - because I don't know all  my friends middle names and dates of birth.

I have seen a similar post on another forum where the bank was purportedly Kroo.

I wonder if OP's is same bank 🤔

Yes, it is.

AmityNeon

Bee175 said:

wiseonesomeofthetime said:

Vortigern said:

Which bank is this?

Simple answer to both questions is "I don't know" - because I don't know all  my friends middle names and dates of birth.

I have seen a similar post on another forum where the bank was purportedly Kroo.

I wonder if OP's is same bank 🤔

Yes, it is.

I suspected as much and hoped I was wrong, but I'm not surprised.

We know outgoing payments are often flagged for review before being released by the sending bank, but ever since Kroo experienced a sudden influx of unprecedented demand and a surge in applications/transfers due to their then-leading interest rate being promoted by MSE, there have been numerous reports of incoming payments being randomly held for no apparent reason by the same receiving bank, i.e. Kroo. Their only justification was/is the usual spiel, e.g. "the safety of our customers is of the highest importance".

I thought your experience could be a report of a different bank reviewing a bog-standard incoming payment, but alas, it's just Kroo... 🙄

eskbanker

Bee175 said:
A rouge worker in their call centre perhaps?

Bank employees going into the red? 😮

seatbeltnoob

should have just complied. They can seriously mess you up if they suspect this to be money laundering, terrorism or other illicent money.

they can cause complications for you in future.

subjecttocontract

This is evolution of banking, systems improvement and progress through the use of online services........it's something we should all embrace. Just imagine the problems the OP would have had if the sender had given him one of those old fashioned cheque things instead.

Grumpy_chap

Banks can flag transactions / accounts for verification / investigation for any number of reasons - the triggers are not made public.

It is just I don't think the OP has said what the payment from the friend was for (and nor do they need to), but there was a thread some while back where a poster had some transactions investigated because the friend put some kind of humourous (to them) comment in the "reference" field.  The bank didn't see whatever had been written as humourous and it instead triggers the fraud / crime checks.
Just a comment in case anyone sees that and wonders what could be a trigger.

The amount of the small transaction may also have been a trigger, £21-60 is a small, but odd amount.  I once had a credit card  breached and a small (but odd) transaction value was processed from somewhere abroad - fortunately for me the CC stopped the transaction and the call centre advised me that this was done as a test and the "bad guys" then knew they had the account and could do with it as they willed.

Combine the two, and it really could be a flag.  Potentially a big difference between "£21.60 - lunch bill", then "£25 - happy birthday", and then "£21.60 - thanks for the high"

Band7

Bee175 said:

wiseonesomeofthetime said:

Vortigern said:

Which bank is this?

Simple answer to both questions is "I don't know" - because I don't know all  my friends middle names and dates of birth.

I have seen a similar post on another forum where the bank was purportedly Kroo.

I wonder if OP's is same bank 🤔

Yes, it is.

Kroo have very strange processes and procedures. After they blocked a repeat incoming payment from one of my own UK current accounts for over a day, I decided to close my account with them. This can only be done by requesting it via their CS (no CASS, no option to close in app). It took them an entire month to action that request, and I needed to raise a complaint to get my outstanding interest paid, even though they had clear instructions where to pay the interest to.