In an ideal world all accounts would be traceable but shysters can manipulate using sophisticated hacking methods and have people far more skilled than any bank has. Couple that with greed and a lack of conscience and bingo
Banks are actually looking into what can be done at the point of where the money transfers to someone else, holding money for checks etc. Something along the lines of PayPal would be a good idea maybe. Your bank transfers the money to the holding bank, they transfer it on when the ongoing account is validated by them. They would have the responsibility for ensuring it is not a scam and refunding if they get it wrong.
I don't see what else they can do with us. We are constantly being told what not to do by adverts, numerous stories like the one in the link, constant advice from the bank via email and online.
I've had three payments held in the last couple of years. Two by online bank transfer and one on a credit card. I assume they were triggered by being over a certain amount. One transfer was the first payment I made to a new payee I had set up myself. The credit card was for payment by telephone. In each case I was contacted within a short time to ask it was me making the payment before they released the money.
In addition, I drew out a sum of money in cash for various purposes from the branch last year, and it took over 20 minutes while they checked my identity, because nobody there recognised me by sight, asked if pressure had been put on me, why I wasn't transferring via the bank, was it for an auction site purchase etc. It was bliddy annoying, but you couldn't say they weren't trying to protect you. This was down to it being a certain amount, had I drawn out £1 less they wouldn't have bothered with checks.
No lily Barclaycard are 'investigating' & they should take 10 days & NatWest are being absolute wasters. They hang up, keep passing him from pillar to post, say they will ring back & don't.
A hard lesson. They've lost £1,600 & my son-in-law's mother £3,000. Carefully planned scam it was too. They were both -mother & son- drawn into it. I can't help thinking that if 27 wasn't on the other side of the world this might not have happened, but who knows. No point in saying anything like that to them.