[Closed] Bank transfer - pitfalls?

None IMO. Used it many times

Used it loads, never any problems.

Cool, thanks folks.

If anything, the risk is for him as a buyer rather than for you as a seller. A worst case scenario - you have his money, you don't send him the goods.

The main pitfall is someone screws up the account number- if you manage to pick a genuine account number it'll get sent to that account and it's a bollocks to get back. If you sent it to a valid but unused account number then it basically depends on the bank but that can be almost as bad (if it's bloody Barclays essentially!) So do be careful. Something like 90% of all failed bank transfers are caused by account number error

I don't know about the fraud side but that could be pretty messy. But that's just an inevitable part of any money exchange really and not so much not to worry about, as something there's no point in worrying about because it's pretty rare and you can't do anything about it.

^This

Safe as houses unless you mess up a digit, then someone gets a pleasant surprise and you don't have any recourse.

I'm pretty sure you have to mess up two digits, but not certain. There's some error-checking stuff in account numbers to ensure that one digit wrong is possibly trapped..

Edit : I'm talking bolarks

So long as the transfer works then the risk is with the seller, but if they know your address SC and Acc num them you could get lots of DD's set up if they were malicious.

Aren't there reasons why you don't want other people to know your account details.

I seem to remember Clarkson put his in the papers and a charity took 500 quid

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7174760.stm

DD guarantee means you'll get any more debited back though. No risk to you as far as i know.

It's exactly as risky as writing a cheque, in that respect. Basically it's possible to be inconvenienced but not really out of pocket- fraudulent DDs are trivial to sort out via the direct debit guarantee, fraudulent withdrawals a bit more hassly but harder for peope to pull off and still, you'll get your money back.

(the UK banking system is largely based around soft, economic levels of security, backed up with guarantees and customer protection. So rather than preventing all fraud, they just prevent most of it and pay you back for the rest)

The actual fraud you can do with direct debits and BACS payments is hilarious but not something that'll involve some random personal bank account.

I usually send a tenner and check it's arrived safely before I send the rest of the money

I like that idea

I'm now better informed.Thanks