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Post by crabtree on Jul 14, 2023 17:22:53 GMT 1
My usual monthly UK government pension (not state pension) was due to arrive in my French bank on Tuesday, but it did not.
On Wednesday I got a message from the bank that they had stopped the payment, and I needed to send them details of the payment (who it was from, who they are etc etc).
I did that by return including my last advice of payment dated May, and still no pension received.
I know why they are doing it, but here is what is stupid, if they care to look back over the last 15 years, they will see the same payment into their bank on the same date every month.
What is even more worrying, is that if I did not have some savings in reserve, I would now be overdrawn with all the direct debits due to go out a few days after the pension is paid in.
Now we have a bank holiday weekend, and I doubt that I will have any news from them until Tuesday at the earliest.
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suein56
Member
Southern Morbihan 56 Brittany
Posts: 7,531
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Post by suein56 on Jul 14, 2023 17:31:33 GMT 1
That must be alarming .. hope you get the problem resolved quickly.
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Post by woolybanana on Jul 14, 2023 17:43:01 GMT 1
Which bank?
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Post by jardiniere on Jul 14, 2023 18:34:27 GMT 1
That's shocking. Thank goodness you have reserves. but here is what is stupid, if they care to look back over the last 15 years, they will see the same payment into their bank on the same date every month. So simple for the bank to do this rather than cause individuals worry and possible hardship. Sounds like Banque Postale's behaviour but maybe they're all as bad as each other.
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Veem
Member
Posts: 12,014
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Post by Veem on Jul 14, 2023 19:15:28 GMT 1
If you don't mind saying, what do you think the reason is for the bank to stop payments?
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Post by gigi on Jul 14, 2023 19:31:33 GMT 1
I assumed that it was part of the bank’s anti-money-laundering checks, which aren’t needed if they would look up history of accounts.
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exile
Member
Massif Central
Posts: 2,686
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Post by exile on Jul 14, 2023 19:36:56 GMT 1
'Tis more complicated than that. A regular payment does not make it legitimate in the eyes of the law. It may well be that the UK's use of a US concern to make the payments is not seen as without risk. I seem to remember it used to be via an Irish bank - which might have been considered as more secure as beimg within the EU.
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Post by tim17 on Jul 15, 2023 7:43:42 GMT 1
We had a major battle with Credit Agricole last month when sending the proceeds of our house sale here to our UK bank account via a currency company. Having completed the paperwork in our local branch we assumed that the transfer would just go through but of course being France nothing is simple and after two days I got a call from the branch manager to say that the transfer had been refused because it was deemed 'not secure'. Apparently, no CA customer in the Charente Maritime had ever sent money to the company (Currencies Direct) so for our own protection CA wouldn't allow us to use CD or any other currency company come to that, our only option was for CA to transfer the money direct to Lloyds Bank potentially losing us 0000's in the process because of the fees etc.
I wouldn't accept CA's decision and demanded a rdv with the branch manager. Armed with a complete paper trail from where we got the money all the way through to what we were going to do with the money in the UK I forced CA to back down and four days after we started the process they put the transfer through. Crazily, just five hours after we signed the new transfer forms in branch the money arrived into our Lloyds account via CD.
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Veem
Member
Posts: 12,014
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Post by Veem on Jul 15, 2023 8:22:37 GMT 1
Compliance is now a nightmare in the UK too. I have recently sold a house there which had been my residence for 6 years and was then rented out for 25. I could not believe the number of hoops I had to jump through, right down to having a copy of my UK birth certificate officially certified by a notaire. Even she was dumbfounded by that one.
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Aardvark
Non-gamer
Living in soggy 22 and still wondering what's going on.
Posts: 2,172
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Post by Aardvark on Jul 15, 2023 8:24:48 GMT 1
Not surprised at all. CA performing up to expectations.
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Post by jardiniere on Jul 15, 2023 9:12:05 GMT 1
It may well be that the UK's use of a US concern to make the payments is not seen as without risk. Crabtree said it wasn't the state pension so the payment wasn't necessarily made via a US bank.
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exile
Member
Massif Central
Posts: 2,686
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Post by exile on Jul 15, 2023 12:17:06 GMT 1
Missed that point. Thanks for the correction.
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Post by crabtree on Jul 15, 2023 12:28:14 GMT 1
Just to clarify some of your points/questions. It is La Banque Postale. I am assuming it is to do with money laundering. It is my UK Government pension - evening all!!!!
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JohnnyD
Member
Mayenne (53) When Covid allows..........Which isn't very often these days........
Posts: 2,014
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Post by JohnnyD on Jul 15, 2023 12:46:25 GMT 1
I find it most bizarre that any bank can cancel a payment that’s been happening for years from a uk government source for any reason whatsoever, I’d be looking for a new bank…..
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Post by crabtree on Jul 15, 2023 14:03:15 GMT 1
I am already of that mind Johnny.
I am assuming it must be some sort of computer program that triggered the alert, because as you say, I suspect a human would look at previous months/years before triggering an alert.
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