Paying money from business account - war and peace required - feel like a child

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I had to transfer £30K from my company account to a car dealership for a vehicle purchase.

Set up the payment - had to click three time on "Continue" on the page where it warned about fraud before it would continue.

Then, there was a series of 20 questions to ask along the lines of:

1. What am I buying
2. have I received the goods
3. Have I done the deal face to face
4. Am I sure
5. what are the goods
6. Am I really really really really sure

etc etc

In between each question was a splash page telling me that fraudsters are criminals and they are telling me how to answer the questions.......

I could only do 15K per day so I went through the whole rigmarole yesterday

After bracing myself for a repeat performance this morning, I tried to transfer the second tranche only to find it is making me wait 72 hours for my own protection before I can transfer the rest.

Supposed to be collecting the vehicle Friday so its going to be cutting it fine.

It really winds me up. Its my money. If I want to withdraw it and cut it up into confetti its my choice not theirs.

Except a lot of vulnerable people are parted from their money after falling victim to nefarious schemes. I'm perfectly happy to check a couple of boxes if it helps prevent rinsing someone of their life savings to be honest.

Well, OP, would it have been better if you had sent 30K with one click to the wrong accunt and can't get it back?
You have a business account so presumably you know that money laundering is A Thing and banks have to check?

YABU

banks have a duty of care, and if they don’t ask these questions to protect you and try and stop vulnerable people falling for scams then the bank is liable for the money if it turns out to be a scam.

forgot to add: AFAIK you can't withdraw your money and destroy it, I'm pretty sure there are laws against that

Have you called the bank? This is (quite rightly) in place to stop people from being defrauded.
I’ve transferred similar sums before (a few years now) but have called my bank to tell them before, and it all went through in one go.

It's got to the point tho where even if we know the recipient, the screens are so hysterical, it worries me.

It’s also not the bank’s fault that you’re ‘cutting it fine’. Are you not more glad that you’re not starting a frantic thread on here panicking that you’ve sent your cash to the wrong place?

not to hammer the point home too much (hysterical? really?)

www.theguardian.com/money/2019/dec/07/i-lost-my-193000-inheritance-with-one-wrong-digit-on-my-sort-code

With a check against the sort code and account number coming up with the correct business name, I'd say that perfectly good due diligence.

I'd also argue that business accounts should not be subject to the same hysteria as personal ones.

Just like consumer rights are a lot stronger than B2B since people running businesses are expected to know what they are doing

Oh stop moaning!
The banks had to put this in place because there was so much fraud happening.

I'd also argue that business accounts should not be subject to the same hysteria as personal ones.

The banks couldn't give a shiny shit about what you do with your money as a business: however, the law on financial regulation is a LOT more concerned.

Are you a fan of unchecked money laundering?

I agree this is absurd for a business account. If you had to go through this level of checks to run a business then you’d never be able to pay anyone. I think you need to reconsider who your commercial account is with.

FFS stop using the word hysteria.

If you had transferred your 30k to the wrong account with one click, would you be in hysterics on the phone to the bank to get it back? What a fuss over a few clicks. How long did it take? 20 minutes? an hour? 2 days?

You are mistaken. It stops being your money as soon as you hand it over to another entity. You merely administer it now, whereas the entity (bank in your case) actually controls it. You have to jump through whatever hoops they decide to get 'your' money.

The actual banknotes in your pocket or under your mattress are yours to both administer and control.

People seem to struggle to understand the difference.

@Brefugee the OP clearly says that she needs to wait 72 hours to transfer the rest. So, 3 days. 3 days to pay a b2b bill. She’s not talking about transferring her life savings.

They'd ask the same if you rang up and did it over the phone. The bank always ask me the same set of questions even for a £5 transfer.

Crikey six continents clicks, must've been awful for you. Hope you've recovered ok.

*continue not continents

Seriously, you're buying a new car and instead if looking forward to it you are moaning about ticking a few boxes?

Yes, it's annoying. It is also important to try and stop people being ripped off. In my mind minor inconvenience would be an eye roll at my phone and move on. I would not waste any time thinking about it any further.

£30k would be a lot of peoples life savings or more!

thanks @rainyskylight i missed the 72 hours. But for those who say this impedes business - it doesn't impede mine. We regularly make huge transfers - easily into the high 6 figures (we don't go into 7 figures, because we break them down if we need to go that high), and whenever we have a new supplier, we have to get them to complete a billion forms under KYC rules/regs. After that they're registered at our bank as a known supplier and every other transfer goes through as soon as we click send.

For a one-off it's a pain in the neck, but how often do you buy a car from a business account. Make a note of it so next time you're ready

Unfortunately the quickest way to make large payments like this nowadays is to actually go in to one of the rapidly reducing numbers of branches. They'll still do the checks and it will cost you a fee, but at least it will be done in one go.

For some perspective, one of our clients lost £5k before they allowed you to check the account name and sort code as my colleague's email had unknowingly been hacked and they sent a copy invoice to a client saying "Sorry - forgot we changed our bank details - here's the new reference".

Client didn't realise their mistake until we chased them for their fees and said that in retrospect they should have realised as the email was very poor quality and the updated invoice was a very dodgy pdf editor job. The £5k was long gone though by then.

The new changes to check the account name are good, but not perfect. Metro bank, for example, aren't on the list, so it doesn't check automatically, so you're still taking a risk with them, but there are other ways to mitigate the risks.

The banks have to be so careful to ensure that if a mistake is made, that it's YOUR mistake and not theirs. Basically, they're trying to be able to lay all the blame on the customer so they don't have to reimburse any money.

Banks can’t win, there is “hysteria” about them supposedly allowing fraud which is all too often down to user error/stupidity or they are criticised for putting in safeguards
They actually aren’t too bothered if you do send your money to the wrong place but they have to be able to show that they tried to stop you to cover their corporate arses.

I think business accounts need just as much scrutiny as personal ones, if not more. The sums involved could easily be more significant, the consequences can be very far-reaching with jobs at stake as well as the funds in question. Fraudsters are growing increasingly savvy and take advantage of the time and commercial pressures businesses are under.

Just this week my firm had an extremely convincing fake invoice sent to Accounts purporting to come from the Head Buyer requesting expedited payment. Had the transaction been completed it would have meant in excess of £100k disappearing into the ether and a very unhappy few days for a junior staff member. So I'm very glad the process was such that the staff member was prompted more than once to question what they were being asked to do.

You could have gone into the bank and done it in 1 transaction.