£0.01 transactions

Banking
1

I often see people say “don’t send £0.01” “it can trigger an algorithm” but what experience do people have of this?

If there’s no confirmation of payee - or I’m sending a large figure and I want peace of mind that the details are set up right - I will still do it in advance of a larger transfer.

With my father - he has had a larger one held up by a High St bank after sending £0.01, but not the whole account frozen or anything silly like that - so is that what people mean when they say there is a “risk”?

I’ve had payments held up before but never as a direct link to having sent a small amount first.

Is there any risk on the inbound side? Will a bank ever have an issue crediting 1p? Surely not?

Any experiences are welcome!

1 Like
2

I’d have thought it’s a sensible way to confirm that the details you have are correct. I haven’t experienced any risks myself, but who knows what strange rules individual banks apply?!

3

The ironic thing is let’s say you use a new card at Amazon, it’ll do a £0.01p check and then charge the full amount.

I have however fallen foul of this twice. Once moving £1 to Algbra and then £800 got it blocked.

And once transferring £1 to test out the bank details were right NatWest to FD which went through fine but the following £1000 got flagged.

I will say in the latter I got it resolved automatically within 10 minutes though.

2 Likes
4

I used to do that, but since Confirmation of Payee it seems a bit redundant to me.

4 Likes
5

I once had a new account closed and the only activity on it was sending £0.05 there and back to make sure my main account was set up as a payee properly. Make of that what you will.

6

Never any issues, and I have used 1p and £1 transfers, to test bank details, like others.

The only issue I have seen are when people use that to send messages via the reference field, some of which were, let’s say, questionable :man_facepalming:

And that is anecdotal evidence, I hasten to add :rofl:

7

I’m not sure why - but when we’re talking big money I still like to see the small amount go in.

That & some accounts I use don’t work with COP.

8

Which account was this!

9

What’s the process like with NatWest?

With Barclays they can postpone the payment for a good few days

10

I’ll respond no comment to that, but they’re no longer around though safe to say I’m avoiding their successors/group.

At the time I just got a “we’ve closed your account with immediate effect and we won’t tell you any more”. The DSAR didn’t release any internal notes so it could only have been the £0.05, or that they thought I shouldn’t have had an account approved

11

In this case the money left NatWest fine but got stuck at FDs end in what I presume was a checking queue.

A quick five min chat with CS via Chat and it was all good.

12

Pretty sure one guy online I read about had his friend mention ISIS training in the reference and had a very stern warning that the banks have to act very strictly around terrorist financing :rofl: and to not do that ever again

1 Like
13

Yep, that’s one of them. DOH! :man_facepalming::joy:

14

Someone I knew got a transfer called “Korea” held up once - was paying someone back for Korean products

15

Yes, if the bank supports CoP, then you wouldn’t need to do it.

16

Just use CoP and a credit card/PayPal for purchasing anything online.