Strange ATM message and spurious pending deposit.

Deneb

This morning my OH went to the local ATM at our village post office to make a cash withdrawal. She intended to withdraw £200, but the machine informed her that the most she could withdraw was £160.83. As the machines don't dispense pennies, I'm wondering if it was displaying what it thought was the available amount in our account? Neither of us have ever seen this or had a withdrawal restriction imposed before, so I'm wondering if this would be the reason.

There is currently a balance of more than £9K in the account, which if it is the reason, seems odd. However, yesterday when checking recent pending transactions on my mobile app I noticed a £1 cheque deposit showing as awaiting clearance. Neither of us had paid a cheque into our account, and an hour later it had disappeared from both pending transactions and the account balance.

Oh, and also this morning I received a text message telling me that the balance in our account had reached or gone above the high balance alert I had asked to receive. As far as I'm aware, we've never set a high balance alert. The account has been over the balance figure quoted in the message for over 20 years, and we've never had a high balance alert message before

This is with Nationwide. Just wondering if they are having some weird glitches?

Middle_of_the_Road

I did get two identical balance texts from Nationwide yesterday. Only get one normally.

TadleyBaggie

I have low balance alert set up but that didn't get sent overnight when a couple of DD's took me below that.

Deneb

Thanks both. Does anyone know if the ATM withdrawal limit message (pounds and pence) is normal for an attempt to withdraw more than the funds that the machine believes are available in the account? Neither off us have ever seen anything like it before, as we never attempt to withdraw money we know we haven't got. Just trying to understand what was supposedly going on before I contact NW.

km1500

no it's not normal - may have been an IT problem they probably worked on their systems over the long weekend

Jami74

Have you contacted Nationwide about any of this? I'd be really spooked if a strange payment was showing on my account AND the ATM restricted my withdrawal AND I received a text message saying that I had changed my account notifications. Although to be honest, I'd be ultra paranoid if I had £9k in a current account.

Deneb

Yes, awaiting a response. To be clear I haven't changed any account notifications, not have I received a message saying that I had. I received a high balance alert, but have not previously received them on occasions that we've had relatively large sums in the account. 

I'd be more concerned if the account had shown an unauthorised debit: an unknown cheque deposit awaiting clearance which later disappeared altogether just seems odd. 

Jami74

Deneb said:

Yes, awaiting a response. To be clear I haven't changed any account notifications, not have I received a message saying that I had. I received a high balance alert, but have not previously received them on occasions that we've had relatively large sums in the account. 

Your original post said that as far as you were aware you had never set a high balance alert, but now you had got such an alert. I would worry that someone else had tried to set alerts up on the account.

A £1 deposit that you don't recognise also seems a bit suspicious, it was pending for a while then disappeared. Could someone be verifying that the account exists and checking that the £1 appears to the account they have access to?

How did you contact them? There are 24/7 helplines. If someone calls you claiming to be from Nationwide and wants to talk about suspicious activity on your account, how will you know it's really them calling you back?

Honestly, I'm probably being over the top. But £9k is a lot of money to be taking risks with if you spot suspicious activity on your account.