Bank dirty practices or unjustly cynical?

funkhouser

The very odd time I need to temporarily move funds from a saving account to my current account to cover big upcoming bills, months where I've had big one off costs and so on, before pay day and still have enough there to live on until then. I do this electronically and so far so good.

From experience and looking back at my records I know the money always has appeared in my current account the next day. Which is handy. Low and behold though the 1 day in many, many years that the money NOT arriving in the account overnight would cause the account to be overdrawn at some point the following day and incur fees it does not appear!

Naturally the bank reject all responsibility and dispute any suggestion they have the ability to to assist their customer because of "The Computer". Could this Computer be somehow making decisions that extract fees from customers unjustly?

The cynic (and paranoiac) in me suggests this is not coincidence. Does anyone have any similar experiences?

Oral Surgeon

funkhouser wrote: »

The very odd time I need to temporarily move funds from a saving account to my current account to cover big upcoming bills, months where I've had big one off costs and so on, before pay day and still have enough there to live on until then. I do this electronically and so far so good.

From experience and looking back at my records I know the money always has appeared in my current account the next day. Which is handy. Low and behold though the 1 day in many, many years that the money NOT arriving in the account overnight would cause the account to be overdrawn at some point the following day and incur fees it does not appear!

Naturally the bank reject all responsibility and dispute any suggestion they have the ability to to assist their customer because of "The Computer". Could this Computer be somehow making decisions that extract fees from customers unjustly?

The cynic (and paranoiac) in me suggests this is not coincidence. Does anyone have any similar experiences?

I think that you are giving the bank more credit than is due. There is likely no scam to skin money off you, just plain old laziness and computer says no….

I have thought that big bank transfers go into limbo for a few days to earn the bank some money in interest while between your accounts… My new theory is that they artificially slow down electronic transfers in order to justify a "same day transfer" fee that costs e45 or so…..

Carawaystick

Are they in the same bank? If so shennanigans.

28064212

There are rules in place surrounding transfer times. Assuming you're talking about a transfer between two different banks in the SEPA zone: If a transfer is made on a working day before the sending bank's cut-off time (3:30pm is a common time used, but the sending bank can confirm), it must be in the receiver's account within one working day. If you transfer after the cut-off time (or on a non-working day), it will be treated as if the transaction occurred on the next working day i.e. a transfer made on a Saturday will be in the recipient's account on Tuesday.

These are maximum transfer times. It's possible for a transaction to show up inside these times, but you shouldn't rely on it

Jim2007

funkhouser wrote: »

The cynic (and paranoiac) in me suggests this is not coincidence. Does anyone have any similar experiences?

No but I do have a lot of experience of banking IT schedules! All banks must comply with the SEPA rules, so IT manages will schedule their various upgrades and so on to meet those rules but that is all. All can go well for months and then one night your payment does not go as you expected because IT took the system down to work on it, they'll have it back up in time to meet the SEPA obligations, but not what you were expecting. Rely only on the SEPA rules, past habits are not a guarantee of service.