Did You Get A Little Present From Santander This Xmas?

[ToraToraTora]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-59826345
....Programmers today eh! PMSL!

[Mamyalynne]

Ooopsy!

[Hymie]

When a bank customer makes a mistake, paying someone in error – the banks give all sorts of excuses as to why they cannot reclaim the funds.

Now that the shoe is on the other foot, I have little doubt that they will reclaim the money (that for some reason customers cannot).

[rowanwitch]

They are saying a lot of people have already spent it and the other banks are reluctant to recall it...

[Hymie]

Cannot and reluctant are two different words.

[bobbinwales]

Asking (for) and demanding are allso 2 different words

[davebro]

Probably not a programmer's fault - looks like Ops ran a procedure twice.

[ToraToraTora]

davebro, very probably but we programmers must anticipate that so we use various techniques to spot that scenario.

[Khandro]

It's easily done with modern methods, an employee at a UK lawyers once transferred £300,000 in to one of my accounts instead of £30,000, just one zero in the wrong place. Not so easy when things were hand-written.

A friend in the US paid no tax for several years because he was registered as having 200 children! Computers can't 'think'.

[youngmafbog]

//Computers can't 'think'.//

No, but they can be programmed to look for obvious issues and either warn/stop at input it or route it to a human for further consideration.

Done plenty of it in my lifetime of coding banking applications.

[ichkeria]

Is it just me who isn’t surprised it was Santander?

[Deskdiary]

Those who have spent the money knowing it’s not theirs, and refuse to pay it back, are thieves.

[Kardashev]

yes those that have spent it will still be liable but sometimes hard to get it back

[Gromit]

Is it a programming error ?

Has the hallmarks of human error.

// Santander indicated that it may contact people directly to get the money back. //
Many of the people who received the double payment do not bank with Santander? How will they obtain the contact information? Surely one bank handing customer telephone numbers to another bank would be a gross breach of Data Protection laws.

[ToraToraTora]

not an error gromit just a sloppy job. Like any skill you get cowboys.

[ToraToraTora]

gromit: "How will they obtain the contact information? " - all stored centrally for the use of all banks. Try setting up a payment from your net banking, it will take the SC/ACC and verify it's the correct name when you set it up.

[Gromit]

I don’t mind my bank using my sort code and account number to payments to and from me.
I would not want my bank to pass on my phone number and email to a third party (another bank).
Are you saying that they do and it is routine?

[ToraToraTora]

No just saying that you can get names from the SC and Acc nos. In a case like this they (Santander) would supply each target bank with a list of SC and Account numbers which they'd sent the funds it would then be the target banks to process the funds retrieval. In many cases they can contra it straight back but some are more complex because they could have spent it etc. Depends how much time there is between the error and the realisation. In difficult cases the target banks would supply Santander with contact details and basically tell them it's their problem to try and retrieve the funds but that is very much a last resort.

[Hymie]

TTT – you say that it is very much a last resort for the other banks to tell Santander that it is their problem to try and recover the money paid in error.

Can you tell me why such a response is a stock answer to customers who have made a payment in error – but the same does not apply between banks?

[ToraToraTora]

Hymie, because they can, life isn't fair.

[Hymie]

See how correct my post was; timed @ 09:02