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Once a month I transfer money into the UK government's tax-free-childcare system. I do it through a standard "Faster Payments" system, and along with the amount, sort code, and account number I'm sending it to, I enter a reference ID. This reference ID is different for each of my children, and makes sure that the money ends up in the right account on the governments' system.
Yesterday, I tried to transfer money from my account (Bank of Scotland), and despite me entering Gideon's reference number, and Gideon's reference number appearing on the confirmation page, Sophia's reference number was what appeared in my transaction history, and the money ended up in Sophia's account.
I thought _I'd_ messed up, so I tried a couple more times. And then I screenshotted the whole process with a £1 transfer, to make sure I wasn't making a basic error of some kind. I'm not sharing the screenshots here, for obvious reasons.
And, no, it's definitely Bank of Scotland sending money with the *previous* reference ID rather than the one you just entered.
Which means that
(a) there's a whole bunch of money in Sophia's account that doesn't need to be there (not the end of the world, I can transfer it back).
(b) more importantly, I can't transfer money into Gideon's account.
(c) Even more importantly, goodness knows how many other users are being hit by this.
I just spent half an hour on the phone with a call handler at Bank of Scotland trying to get them to understand the gravity of the situation, and they have...raised a complaint, escalated it, and will definitely aim to respond to it within 8 weeks. Which seems...suboptimal.
So if anyone knows anyone working at Bank of Scotland, or someone else that might be able to get attention on this issue (I'd settle for a journalist at this point!) then please let me know.
Update: replicated in Firefox and Chrome. Works fine in the Android app.
Update 2: this has been going on for at least a week, according to a friend hit by it a week ago.
Yesterday, I tried to transfer money from my account (Bank of Scotland), and despite me entering Gideon's reference number, and Gideon's reference number appearing on the confirmation page, Sophia's reference number was what appeared in my transaction history, and the money ended up in Sophia's account.
I thought _I'd_ messed up, so I tried a couple more times. And then I screenshotted the whole process with a £1 transfer, to make sure I wasn't making a basic error of some kind. I'm not sharing the screenshots here, for obvious reasons.
And, no, it's definitely Bank of Scotland sending money with the *previous* reference ID rather than the one you just entered.
Which means that
(a) there's a whole bunch of money in Sophia's account that doesn't need to be there (not the end of the world, I can transfer it back).
(b) more importantly, I can't transfer money into Gideon's account.
(c) Even more importantly, goodness knows how many other users are being hit by this.
I just spent half an hour on the phone with a call handler at Bank of Scotland trying to get them to understand the gravity of the situation, and they have...raised a complaint, escalated it, and will definitely aim to respond to it within 8 weeks. Which seems...suboptimal.
So if anyone knows anyone working at Bank of Scotland, or someone else that might be able to get attention on this issue (I'd settle for a journalist at this point!) then please let me know.
Update: replicated in Firefox and Chrome. Works fine in the Android app.
Update 2: this has been going on for at least a week, according to a friend hit by it a week ago.
