The Lemon Fool

I have a credit on my bank statement that I don't recognise so I thought I'd ask the bank...they can't tell me!
I expect it may be from a fixed term deposit - interest paid monthly - with another bank but two weeks after the credit it does not show as an interest payment made - so I don't know!
Is it not normal practice for a financial institution to identify itself when making a payment?

As a bare minimum surely they should know the sort code of the originator?

Have you tried googling whatever reference the bank does have? Or is it just date and amount?

DrFfybes wrote:As a bare minimum surely they should know the sort code of the originator?

It's odd because these days there are lots of checks if you deposit funds in someone else's bank account due to increased anti money laundering rules.

I used to be able to anonymously add funds to someone else's bank account just by going to their bank and handing cash over the counter with the digits for that account. Now I cannot do that any more and have to identify myself.

gnawsome wrote:I have a credit on my bank statement that I don't recognise so I thought I'd ask the bank...they can't tell me!

Can't, or don't want to be bothered? I suspect they could if they wanted, but it would be a bit of work and they don't have a fee on the list of fees and charges which they could levy, so.....

Have you googled the reference?

pje16 wrote:Have you googled the reference?

No I haven't done that, the only ref is a line that reads "Interest paid after tax 0.00 deducted."
Seems a bit vague even for Google and I'm a bit slow...

gnawsome wrote:

pje16 wrote:Have you googled the reference?

No I haven't done that, the only ref is a line that reads "Interest paid after tax 0.00 deducted."
Seems a bit vague even for Google and I'm a bit slow...

have you got an account with Santander bank ?
as they have been known to use that narrative.

pje16 wrote:

gnawsome wrote:

pje16 wrote:Have you googled the reference?

No I haven't done that, the only ref is a line that reads "Interest paid after tax 0.00 deducted."
Seems a bit vague even for Google and I'm a bit slow...

have you got an account with Santander bank ?
as they have been known to use that narrative.

Thanks that's very informative.
Yes I do have an account with Santander and the fixed term savings account is with Cahoot.
I guess there's a lesson in that for some of us.

gnawsome wrote:Thanks that's very informative.
Yes I do have an account with Santander and the fixed term savings account is with Cahoot.
I guess there's a lesson in that for some of us.

This is where I found out
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/di ... x-deducted
4th post down on the page

chas49 wrote:

gnawsome wrote:I have a credit on my bank statement that I don't recognise so I thought I'd ask the bank...they can't tell me!

Can't, or don't want to be bothered? I suspect they could if they wanted, but it would be a bit of work and they don't have a fee on the list of fees and charges which they could levy, so.....

What information do you think they have? If its an external credit they will have access via the Clearing House (or equivalent) of the sort code on the other side. That sort code itself (depending on its owner) could be a processing centre and not the end of the chain of remitters.

There is very little incentive (outside perhaps of private banks or high net worth relationship banking) for any bank to undertake credit clearing queries. How much would anyone be prepared to pay for such a service?

gnawsome wrote:I have a credit on my bank statement that I don't recognise so I thought I'd ask the bank...they can't tell me!
I expect it may be from a fixed term deposit - interest paid monthly - with another bank but two weeks after the credit it does not show as an interest payment made - so I don't know!
Is it not normal practice for a financial institution to identify itself when making a payment?

I had that happen to me very occasionally. I keep very careful records in an Excel sheet of all expenditure, and I keep track of money received so it's rare for something to get past me.

However, that particular account was used a lot for Amazon purchases at the time. After a while, I realised that these were refunds from small items which I'd bought, forgotten about but then they couldn't be sent for some reason, so the money was refunded.

Just last month however, I had 48 quid appear in my Smile account and I still have no idea where it came from.

Not complaining. Just wish they could move the decimal place a bit to the right.

Steve