Santander stopping alerts - why would they do that?

GeoffTF

Section62 said:

GeoffTF said:

It is not helpful to say that I can tell when someone has stolen a large sum of money from my account by logging in the their online system every five minutes to check..

It is unhelpful to suggest that I install their app on an old phone that has not received any security updates for years. There are lots of stories about people who have had their phones stolen and their bank accounts drained. Worse still, there have been incidents where muggers have forced people to give access to their banking apps. I do not want the added risk.

The 'helpful' people will probably just tell you to buy a new phone and keep it updated, and not to worry about it being stolen because biometrics make it 100% secure.

Santander's requirement for a mobile phone to run their app is Android 8.0 or later, which had not had any security updates for many years. Biometrics can be overridden by a PIN. I definitely do not want to use their app if they are going to claim that it is 100% secure, and that if money goes missing from my account, it must be my fault. Perfect security does not exist.

uk1

Lightning360 said:

I know some people here will use it, but clearly, most people don't. Why should Santander keep a feature just to suit you? I'd rather they invest that money into better app notifications which would be a much better way of doing it.

You don't have to check the app every 5 minutes either to check for fraud. That would be ridiculous considering how few people are the victim of random fraud like that

It’s great that you can confidently say that “clearly” most people don’t use the function. Share how you know this.  

And share with me what better app would tell me when an amount I set has been taken out of my account in virtual real time so that I can promptly notify Santander of possible fraud?  This alert does exactly that.  Doesn’t Santander want to be told as quickly as possible that there has been an unexpected debit or would it prefer if it wasn’t informed until much later when I have checked the account for no better reason other than I have nothing better to do. 

The fact is, that if what you say is true then you are really  confirming that most people haven’t been taking a small precaution about the detection of possible fraud by setting a simple alert that tells them almost instantly that a sum of cash has been taken from their account that might not have been expected ot possibly authorised without the the need for continuous manual checking which presumably you know that no one will ever do.  That is the very purpose of this simple alert. 

The app has been live and well for many years.  It has never been tweaked or changed.  Apart from the cost of electricity - what maintenance costs that YOU KNOW OF are Santander paying to maintain the app?

I am unable to make sense of your post.

GeoffTF

uk1 said:

Doesn’t Santander want to be told as quickly as possible that there has been an unexpected debit or would it prefer if it wasn’t informed until much later when I have checked the account for no better reason other than I have nothing better to do.

Perhaps they want to be able to say "You did not inform us quickly enough so we will not compensate you."

Lightning360

uk1 said:

Lightning360 said:

I know some people here will use it, but clearly, most people don't. Why should Santander keep a feature just to suit you? I'd rather they invest that money into better app notifications which would be a much better way of doing it.

You don't have to check the app every 5 minutes either to check for fraud. That would be ridiculous considering how few people are the victim of random fraud like that

It’s great that you can confidently say that “clearly” most people don’t use the function. Share how you know this.  

And share with me what better app would tell me when an amount I set has been taken out of my account in virtual real time so that I can promptly notify Santander of possible fraud?  This alert does exactly that.  Doesn’t Santander want to be told as quickly as possible that there has been an unexpected debit or would it prefer if it wasn’t informed until much later when I have checked the account for no better reason other than I have nothing better to do. 

The fact is, that if what you say is true then you are really  confirming that most people haven’t been taking a small precaution about the detection of possible fraud by setting a simple alert that tells them almost instantly that a sum of cash has been taken from their account that might not have been expected ot possibly authorised without the the need for continuous manual checking which presumably you know that no one will ever do.  That is the very purpose of this simple alert. 

The app has been live and well for many years.  It has never been tweaked or changed.  Apart from the cost of electricity - what maintenance costs that YOU KNOW OF are Santander paying to maintain the app?

I am unable to make sense of your post.

A business isn't going to remove a feature that lots of people use or doesn't cost much. It's common sense.

uk1

Lightning360 said:

uk1 said:

Lightning360 said:

I know some people here will use it, but clearly, most people don't. Why should Santander keep a feature just to suit you? I'd rather they invest that money into better app notifications which would be a much better way of doing it.

You don't have to check the app every 5 minutes either to check for fraud. That would be ridiculous considering how few people are the victim of random fraud like that

It’s great that you can confidently say that “clearly” most people don’t use the function. Share how you know this.  

And share with me what better app would tell me when an amount I set has been taken out of my account in virtual real time so that I can promptly notify Santander of possible fraud?  This alert does exactly that.  Doesn’t Santander want to be told as quickly as possible that there has been an unexpected debit or would it prefer if it wasn’t informed until much later when I have checked the account for no better reason other than I have nothing better to do. 

The fact is, that if what you say is true then you are really  confirming that most people haven’t been taking a small precaution about the detection of possible fraud by setting a simple alert that tells them almost instantly that a sum of cash has been taken from their account that might not have been expected ot possibly authorised without the the need for continuous manual checking which presumably you know that no one will ever do.  That is the very purpose of this simple alert. 

The app has been live and well for many years.  It has never been tweaked or changed.  Apart from the cost of electricity - what maintenance costs that YOU KNOW OF are Santander paying to maintain the app?

I am unable to make sense of your post.

A business isn't going to remove a feature that lots of people use or doesn't cost much. It's common sense.

Really?  

When this feature was originally released, Santander promoted it, urging people to use it to improve their security and protection, yet you find it impossible to believe that a feature that very clearly provides added security might be removed for reasons that may not be obviously apparent? Doesn’t that seem more likely?

Lightning360

What is more likely?

A business doing what every business does and evaluating the cost of a service with how many people using it

Or some random mysterious reason that you are unable to give

uk1

Lightning360 said:

What is more likely?

A business doing what every business does and evaluating the cost of a service with how many people using it

Or some random mysterious reason that you are unable to give

Well you can only operate on what seems obvious to you.  

You are asking me to speculate.   I’ll speculate a possibility which you will then say is unlikely.  So nothing I say will help you to see that decisions aren’t always what you seem to think they are.

A possibility is that a few customers - or fraudsters - have claimed to have been defrauded and claimed that whilst they opted in to alerts they received none and therefore failed to promptly notify a fraud which there is an obligation for them to do.  Some frauds rely completely on delay in order to shut down recipient accounts.  Perhaps fraud claims have been rejected.  Perhaps an escalation has been unfavourable to Santander because the alert was seen by an ombudsman to provide “false reassurance” and perhaps Santander has genuinely believed that it was used as a way of defending fraud in a some cases. Such a success by a fraudster would then probably be repeatable. I think some have genuinely posted that they have found alerts not to be entirely reliable.

Banks being as daft as they have often or even continually proved themselves have decided that they will delete it instead.  

So to save you time, I cannot provide you with their actual reason, or claim that this is it,  I’ve simply made it up.  I’m simply suggesting that removing protections that cost little or nothing might imply another reason unknown to even you. 

Theleak250

Is this a text message? RBS stopped this years ago. Although I understand banks are still required to inform you if you enter your overdraft and it’s going to charge you. 

alanwsg

Is this only on Santander Edge accounts?
I have a 123-lite and use these alerts
but I haven't had an Email about them being stopped.

UncleK

Theleak250 said:

Is this a text message? RBS stopped this years ago. Although I understand banks are still required to inform you if you enter your overdraft and it’s going to charge you. 

No - these are emails. The great thing I like is that the amounts that trigger the messages are configurable.