OT: Bank transfers

I think not.

A transfer from your account initiated by you. is routine and not security cheacked much.# A refund probably needs human authorisation.

I beg to differ. Since the inception of APP, banks have become paranoid in case the payment is for a scam and the bank will be liable for the customer's loss.

I presume it takes the company several days to request the refund, then it's paid "instantly" by the banks ...

How come you can sign up for something instantly, but it takes up to "x days" for them to unsubscribe you ?

Don't know. I never unsubscribe from anything, given that I almost always never subscribed to whatever is annoying me.

I emptied by Barclays trading account 5 years ago. They still send me statements Emptying it was hard enough. Closing it was simply more of a problem than it was worth

Do they actually take that long though? eBay say their payments (for sales) will take several days but they are actually made within seconds of being requested. Just arse covering to say it will take longer.

I don't know if it actually takes that long. What I do know is that it is always stated as "Three to five working days", even if it was at a shop's checkout. I think the banks just want to hold on to your money for a little longer.

The keyword there, might be "float".

Banks are allowed to take a certain time to do a thing.

Paul

I've always assumed that it's because retailers really don't like giving money back to customers!

When I buy something in a shop the charge appears immediately, typically I hear the notification from the bank on the phone while I'm still at the till. But that's usually in a "pending" state for a day or two before it becomes confirmed.

In the same shop, if I get a refund, nothing happens for a day or two and then the credit appears but with no period of being "pending".

nib

In message <101jpe8$35fnn$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me, Davey snipped-for-privacy@example.invalid writes

It's because they invest it in the 3.30 at Chelt ^H^H Stock Market before paying it out to you.

Likewise transactions made over the weekend - marked "pending"

Utility companies do something similar with consumer credit.

Brian

Its amazing how much money you can making overnighting it on the Money Markets. If the sums involved are large enough.

That's why banking is now 'free'

I once lost a large payment from a Belgian bank to my UK one. It usually took around 4 days. This one took 4 weeks. It was traced to the bank of scotland, from where it never emerged.

After numerous requests it finally got transferred to my Lloyds account with the comment that 'the person who dealt with these transfers had been on holiday'.

I knew someone, now deceased, who ran a family business. He heard about investing overnight and told his bank manager that's what he wanted to do with the company's balances. The BM tried to discourage him but he stood his ground and found it a worthwhile exercise.

At one time the first company I was FD for had a fair bit of cash surplus in the bank. WE had a cracking accountant. He overnighted a couple of hundred thousand every night and by the end of the year he had as he smilingly reported 'made the company enough to pay his salary'

Back in (IIRC) the 1960s, the chief officer responsible for collecting rents on all the properies owned by the Liverpool Corporation ran an interesting scheme. For several years, any rents paid before the due date (a lot of people did this) would go into such an account in his name. On the due date, the money was tranferred into the Corporation's account.

He had a very comfortable retirement in a place in the sun.

The same here. I have three TSB accounts, I rang them to ask them to close them, and they said I would have to go to a branch to close them. Nearest TSB, 10 miles away, a city centre, getting there would cost, plus time, so I simply emptied both of the redundant accounts. I still get the statements for £0.00.

We lived in the US for many years, then returned here. We kept our bank account in the US for paying bills, subscriptions, etc. My wife died, and when I asked the US bank to remove her name from the account, as they kept sending her statements, reminders, etc, they told me I would have to go into a branch of the bank to do that. When I explained that there are not many branches of US Banks in the UK, they connected me to a 'special operative' who could circumvent the normal rigid rules of the bank. But it took a very long time before the unwelcome mailings finally stopped. The bank often sends me statements confirming that there were no transactions since the last statement.

With a lousy rate of interest, no doubt.

At least they don't charge for the postage for the statements.