On 19/07/2011 09:51, Nightjar wrote:
On 19/07/2011 09:25, David WE Roberts wrote:

"Vortex10" wrote in message
...
Q.

I am contemplating purchasing a car (not finally chosen yet), and it
will cost several thousand pounds. Probably a private purchase.

When researching it seems every possible payment mechanism - even cash
- has horror stories associated with it

There are quite a few about the cars in private transactions too. If I
were thinking of buying second hand, I would only go to a dealer.

If the seller is a private individual, is there any reason I cannot
offer to go with them to THEIR bank, and make a payment into THEIR
account with a debit card?


Hopefully this would be safe.
There are problems with some forms of transfer where they appear to have
been accepted but then the funds fail the final clearing process about 3
days later.
I think this is mainly with clearing cheques, though.

Card transactions also take three days to clear, but that is from when
the terminal is polled, not from when the transaction takes place. Thus,
the funds from a card transaction on a Monday may not be available as
cleared funds until Friday. There is, of course, also a 180 day period
during which a charge back can be applied, although the bank will defend
that for a PIN verified transaction.

I have noted that the 'instant transfers' now available between accounts
sometimes seem to have a limbo status for a couple of days.

They only work quickly if both banks are part of the scheme. Payments to
HM Revenue and Custom, for example, always take three days because they
are not.

I've never been able to work that one out. They have special
arrangements for cheques, allowing them to pay them in long after normal
banking hours so as to avoid an extra day's delay and then they elect
not to join the faster banking scheme and so add three days to simple
electronic payments!

OTOH, transfers within the same bank group can go through
within minutes. I used to have a customer who would phone in an order,
get the price, walk next door to the bank, make the transfer and phone
us back when that was done. The money was always in the account when we
checked.

Colin Bignell

Even with different banking groups - this morning, as usual, I paid
money from my RBS business account to my NatWest personal account and
then part of it from my NatWest account to our LloydsTSB joint account.
The money was there as fast as I could log in!

SteveW