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Egg - transferring money out - software bug

The Egg interface allows you to set up transfers to other accounts.

However, their software has an interesting "feature" that you should be aware of: you *cannot* transfer money to an account with an account number of 8 zeroes (0000 0000). This is absolutely ridiculous as there are accounts with 8 zeroes. I have come across three in the past few months:

Although the interface allows you to set an 8-zeroes account up in your account address book, the transfer will *fail*. Don't try to be clever and phone the transfer in: the software they use internally has the same problem!

Which eejit in the IT department came up with the idea that 0000 0000 is invalid? (Cahoot, for instance, allows transfers to these accounts.)

The only solution is to transfer the money to another bank account first, and from there to the intended destination. But that, of course, doubles the time during which the money does not earn any interest, in which case it might not be worth it any longer. See example below.

I have an Egg savings account

1) from which I wanted to feed my Derbyshire regular saver. Not possible. To transfer money to the Derbyshire, you have to send it to their NatWest collection account 0000 0000.

2) Scottish Hydro (Electricity bill): they use a 0000 0000 collection account.

3) Alliance & Leicester online saver: (yes, one can transfer money via BACS, not just via the linked current account) They also require you to send the money to a 0000 0000 account.

Example three is just what I was going to do. But even though A&L's interest rate is marginally better than that of the AA online account (5.35% v 5.31%) it is more beneficial to transfer the money to the AA account because of the indirection required by the Egg software.

ES

Reply to
Elizabeth Smith
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In message , Elizabeth Smith writes

Only three? There are thousands!

Does the EGG interface allow the input of the reference number that MUST accompany all 00000000 account numbers in a manner that can be self authenticating? I dont think it can on the grounds that the algorithms of the type used to authenticate bank account numbers can not be applied universally to all the users of Bank Head Office Collection accounts. As online users are notoriously inaccurate when inputting data Internet banks generally try and make sure that that can validate static data at input stage. This is relatively easy for bank sort codes and account numbers but is impossible for those data fields which 'belong' to the recipient, i.e. b/soc roll numbers, utility company reference number, policy number etc., If EGG were to allow this then they would likekly get hundreds of 'unapplied' credits every day and this wouldnt work to customers satisfaction at all.

I dont think your use of the word 'eejit' is appropriate in these circs.

Reply to
john boyle

Of course it's jolly well appropriate, although it might not be the programmer who's the eejit here but the senior managers who decided to deny this type of facility to their customers, and who therefore instructed the programmer to commit this act of daftness. And it *is* daft, given there exist similar bill payment collection accounts which do not have zero account numbers.

Frankly, if customers end up dissatisfied as a consequence of their own mistake in transcribing the reference number correctly, then that's just tough, and they'll have to put up with any minor hassle involved in sorting it out.

Reply to
Ronald Raygun

Have you actually read any of my post other than the last line?

Reply to
john boyle

What? Are you alleging I'd cast your pearls of wisdom into the mud without a second's thought? Heaven forbid, Master!

Other banks can do it, without their call centres crumbling under the weight of ham-fisted customers trying to find the black hole into which their funds went when they put in wrong refno. So why can't Egg? They'll get more dissatisfaction from customers finding they can't pay some of their bills at all than from customers who find the odd payment going astray, surely.

It is an idiotic policy decision to offer an on-line banking facility which doesn't have this convenient bill payment feature.

Reply to
Ronald Raygun

Good! Just be sure to always do it!

Reply to
john boyle

So, thousands of transactions cannot be handled online by banks which have decided to disallow transfers to collection accounts.

And how do they pay their Scottish Hydro bill? By cheque. In the day and age of online banking.

Are you telling me that banks typically validate a sort-code account number combination? For what? I don't believe for a second that they check the existence of a particular account no or match it up with the recipient name that the user entered. And who prevents the stupid user from typing in the wrong account number for the right sort-code?

OK, it appears that some banks have taken the decision to disallow transfers to collection accounts. But some others haven't: for instance, Bank of Scotland/Halifax and Cahoot allow self-same transactions.

This policy might be acceptable if the online interface brought up an error message explaining that transfers to collection accounts are disallowed.

However, it is unacceptable if the user is allowed to enter a 00000000 account in his account address book in the first place. And it is even more unacceptable if he gets a useless error message like "try again later" when attempting to transfer.

And if this policy is to prevent 'unapplied' credits, then this piece of advice from the support line is even more unacceptable: "Try 0000 0001. Some banks accept that." Yeah, why not try to send £25,000 into Nirvana at my own expense.

Reply to
Elizabeth Smith

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