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Sort Code and Account No of a Credit Payment

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TopStar74
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Sort Code and Account No of a Credit Payment

#130636

Postby TopStar74 » April 7th, 2018, 11:17 pm

Just spoke to my bank enquiring about a credit transaction done a few months ago. I was not sure where it came from. Took me a while that it was from my builder's bank account to settle something back. The reference just had my address on it. However, ignoring the fact that I found out through my own checks/knowledge, when I asked the bank they said they have absolutely no idea where the money came from. That they would not have the sort code and account number of where it came from and that banks are not obliged to provide that information when they are crediting money into my account. I was completely baffled! Can this really be true? I was wondering about things like money laundering. How is this even possible in this day and age that a bank would not know where some money got deposited from into my account. I find this extraordinary.

Slarti
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Re: Sort Code and Account No of a Credit Payment

#130702

Postby Slarti » April 8th, 2018, 12:02 pm

From dealing with businesses who are paid by BACS, etc, I suspect that banks know where the funds come from, but just won't tell anybody.

Most of the companies I work with have to set up a "customer" in their accounts system that they can pay unidentified funds into, until someone complains about getting a letter before action when they paid their bill 2 months ago.

It is a crazy situation, but that's the way it is.

Slarti

DrBunsenHoneydew
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Re: Sort Code and Account No of a Credit Payment

#130709

Postby DrBunsenHoneydew » April 8th, 2018, 12:36 pm

If I know your account number & sort code (perhaps from a cheque you sent me once long ago) I can pay anything into your account completely anonymously over a bank counter can't I?

TopStar74
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Re: Sort Code and Account No of a Credit Payment

#130710

Postby TopStar74 » April 8th, 2018, 12:39 pm

"If I know your account number & sort code (perhaps from a cheque you sent me once long ago) I can pay anything into your account completely anonymously over a bank counter can't I?"

On the other hand, if someone has made an online payment into my account, either by mistake or deliberately (for whatever strange reason) I find it absolutely ludicrous that there is no way of finding out who paid into your account!

mc2fool
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Re: Sort Code and Account No of a Credit Payment

#130719

Postby mc2fool » April 8th, 2018, 1:08 pm

DrBunsenHoneydew wrote:If I know your account number & sort code (perhaps from a cheque you sent me once long ago) I can pay anything into your account completely anonymously over a bank counter can't I?

No.

You’ll now need either your Barclays debit card or pre-printed paying-in slip to pay cash in at our branches.
:
Customers without a card or pre-printed slip   No  No  No
Non-customers using only account details No No No
https://www.barclays.co.uk/help/payments/how-do-i-pay-cash-in-at-branches/

Seems NatWest are the same: "My sister in London tried to deposit £100 into my Natwest account using their Woolwich branch. It was refused. She was told that only customers could deposit cash to their accounts." http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/sho ... 263&page=3

DrBunsenHoneydew
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Re: Sort Code and Account No of a Credit Payment

#130721

Postby DrBunsenHoneydew » April 8th, 2018, 1:27 pm

Many thanks for that - new rules came in last summer it seems. Seems sensible in these days of money laundering concerns, audit trails, etc.

Lootman
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Re: Sort Code and Account No of a Credit Payment

#130730

Postby Lootman » April 8th, 2018, 1:50 pm

DrBunsenHoneydew wrote:If I know your account number & sort code (perhaps from a cheque you sent me once long ago) I can pay anything into your account completely anonymously over a bank counter can't I?

That has always been my understanding. After all you can go into any bank branch and pay cash into your account, so why not any other account? I cannot recall my bank ever asking me for ID except for large cash withdrawals. They may just assume its my account and I am happy to let them assume that.

The rule seems to be that I cannot take cash of your account but I can pay in money. The checks are all money going out, for obvious reasons.

An interesting variation on that is if you deposit cash by post. I suspect not many people do that but at least in theory you could send a fifty pound note to your bank with a note stating the account number and asking for the 50 to be deposited. The bank would have no idea who sent it.

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Re: Sort Code and Account No of a Credit Payment

#130732

Postby DrBunsenHoneydew » April 8th, 2018, 2:01 pm

By the new rules, you need to have either a pre-printed paying-in slip or a debit card in your possession to pay into your own account now to affirm that it's you making the transaction (or someone known to you that you gave one or other item to so they could act as a surrogate with your permission, but not a random depositor).

Lootman
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Re: Sort Code and Account No of a Credit Payment

#130734

Postby Lootman » April 8th, 2018, 2:05 pm

DrBunsenHoneydew wrote:By the new rules, you need to have either a pre-printed paying-in slip or a debit card in your possession to pay into your own account now to affirm that it's you making the transaction (or someone known to you that you gave one or other item to so they could act as a surrogate with your permission, but not a random depositor).

OK but obviously the person making the deposit could just fill out the slip, which is what you'd do anyway. There is no ID requested so the bank won't ask me to prove that I am you.

I regularly pay cash into my son's account at the Halifax. I'm not sure whether they assume I am my son or whether they don't care whether I am or am not. Sometimes I use a slip but sometimes I just give them the account number. I usually tell them it's my son's account but I never felt that I had to. It was sufficient to know the number.

dspp
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Re: Sort Code and Account No of a Credit Payment

#130743

Postby dspp » April 8th, 2018, 2:56 pm

The rules have changed. Maybe Halifax are still behind the times. NatWest are not, and as a result I cannot easily & legally deposit funds for a (adult) friend any more.

regards, dspp

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Re: Sort Code and Account No of a Credit Payment

#130746

Postby Lootman » April 8th, 2018, 3:03 pm

dspp wrote:The rules have changed. Maybe Halifax are still behind the times. NatWest are not, and as a result I cannot easily & legally deposit funds for a (adult) friend any more.

But how does the bank actually stop you doing that? Some banks have machines that enable you to deposit cash into an account. You just need (from memory) the sort code, account number and account name.

Or if you fill out a paying in slip and go to the counter, have they started asking for ID? Otherwise they would not know whether you were the account holder or not.

If this is a rule I just can't see how it can be enforced.

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Re: Sort Code and Account No of a Credit Payment

#130753

Postby dspp » April 8th, 2018, 3:16 pm

At my friend's bank :

At machine with bank issued card & PIN (i.e. the PIN that they should keep secret to themself ....)

or

At counter, and they ask for a card (no PIN) but if you are not a lookalike then they query you. I'm the wrong sex.

Basically they are tightening up. Which is understandable.

(There are countries where laundering used to be done this way, (and also besmirching of reputations of clean politicians - just go and deposit a load of money in their acct and then scream 'black').)

regards, dspp

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Re: Sort Code and Account No of a Credit Payment

#130756

Postby Lootman » April 8th, 2018, 3:23 pm

dspp wrote:At machine with bank issued card & PIN (i.e. the PIN that they should keep secret to themself ....)

I don't have an account at Barclays but have made small cash deposits via machine (my local branch doesn't really have human tellers any more). All I had to do is enter the relevant digits.

Now perhaps they have reprogrammed the machines to require a card but, if so, that's a very new development. I guess I will find out next time I do it.

dspp wrote:At counter, and they ask for a card (no PIN) but if you are not a lookalike then they query you. I'm the wrong sex. Basically they are tightening up. Which is understandable.

I don't find it understandable. If you walk in with fifty grand in cash, then sure. But the ability to pay, say, fifty quid into another account is totally harmless.

And what about accounts that are operated by post?

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Re: Sort Code and Account No of a Credit Payment

#130758

Postby dspp » April 8th, 2018, 3:29 pm

Re postal accts I do not know. Re my inability to deposit into my friend's acct on her behalf all I know is that it is now very difficult in branch. Re crims, and spooks, I am sure they find ways to do good & bad things still.

(on a somewhat related subject: it gives your bank the absolute heeby-jeebies if you make a bank transfer into it from Iran, however legal such a transfer might be. These days they really really do like to know the source of funds, insist on it even. They are getting very fed up with being fined by the Americans. But that is getting slightly off topic, though it is the same underlying set of issues)

regards, dspp

mc2fool
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Re: Sort Code and Account No of a Credit Payment

#130759

Postby mc2fool » April 8th, 2018, 3:33 pm

dspp wrote:The rules have changed. Maybe Halifax are still behind the times. NatWest are not, and as a result I cannot easily & legally deposit funds for a (adult) friend any more.

Even if your friend gives you one of their pre-printed paying-in slips (from the back of their cheque book, with their MICR code account details printed on it) to fill in the rest of and hand over with the deposit?

That, it seems from the pages I linked to earlier, is what's required for both Barclays and NatWest (and maybe others too). I guess they reckon that if the recipient has given you one of their pre-printed paying-in slips they are, in a sense, "authorising" the deposit -- and it does make it a little more difficult for them to say, "honest officer, I have no idea who tried to put all those counterfeit notes into my account...." :)

It also seems that depositing cash into your own account may sometimes be refused, if you can't prove where you got it from. http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/savi ... count.html

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Re: Sort Code and Account No of a Credit Payment

#130795

Postby Lootman » April 8th, 2018, 6:14 pm

mc2fool wrote:It also seems that depositing cash into your own account may sometimes be refused, if you can't prove where you got it from. http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/savi ... count.html

The article references HSBC asking customers making large cash withdrawals what they need the cash for. That happened to me with NatWest when I took a few thousand out. I wanted cash because I was making a deposit to my eldest son's account at Halifax and wanted same day funds. They accepted that explanation and gave me the cash. Halifax were fine with it as mentioned before.

I can understand these kind of measures for large amounts of cash. I can't see the relevance of stopping a fifty quid deposit in somebody else's account, whatever the reason. If I was going to launder money I wouldn't go around spraying tiny amounts into random accounts. What good what that do me?

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Re: Sort Code and Account No of a Credit Payment

#133069

Postby StepOne » April 18th, 2018, 4:02 pm

Lootman wrote: If I was going to launder money I wouldn't go around spraying tiny amounts into random accounts. What good what that do me?


If you were a launderer you would certainly be dealing in lots of small transactions to try to hide what you were doing. I'm not sure exactly why they would do it into a random bank account, but is it possible that they could later walk into the same branch and claim they had given the wrong account number when making the deposit, so get the money transferred (electronically?) back to them, which adds a layer of authority to the money which is now back in their pocket.

For legitimate deposits surely everyone should be using online banking now.

StepOne

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Re: Sort Code and Account No of a Credit Payment

#133085

Postby Lootman » April 18th, 2018, 5:45 pm

StepOne wrote:For legitimate deposits surely everyone should be using online banking now.

How do you deposit cash using online banking?

I suspect the real laundering happens in large sums, bypasses the banking system, and uses Hawala or Bitcoin.

Or the old "diamonds up the bum" trick.

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Re: Sort Code and Account No of a Credit Payment

#133139

Postby XFool » April 18th, 2018, 9:53 pm

Lootman wrote:
StepOne wrote:For legitimate deposits surely everyone should be using online banking now.

How do you deposit cash using online banking?

I suspect the real laundering happens in large sums, bypasses the banking system, and uses Hawala or Bitcoin.

Or the old "diamonds up the bum" trick.

Bringing a whole new dimension to the phrase: "I would like to make a deposit."?

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Re: Sort Code and Account No of a Credit Payment

#133198

Postby Slarti » April 19th, 2018, 9:22 am

StepOne wrote:For legitimate deposits surely everyone should be using online banking now.


There are still a surprisingly large amount of cheques issued by businesses, even those that want to pay electronically.
You can't deposit those online.

Slarti


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