Re: hyperventilating and feeling faint
A couple of anecdotes about such things:-
Some years ago I needed to pay HMRC and I was up against a payment deadline. I went into my bank branch and was told I couldn't pay it without their paying-in slip. I asked why not. The clerk replied "Money Laundering Rules". I then said "Have you seen who it is that I am paying?" To which he had no answer.
For all this "protecting your money" malarkey, the banks don't make life easy. I wanted to transfer a sizeable amount of money into an NS&I account. They looked up the account number I gave them and they said "Ooh we have no record of this account, are you sure you wish to make this payment?" Funny thing is that if you wanted to make payment to Joe Bloggs, he's on their system. But UK's government-owned savings bank? Nah.
When I had double-checked the account details (have you tried ringing NS&I? Spoiler Alert: Don't). I had the same conversation again. "Are you sure?" "Yes" "If it's wrong we can't guarantee where your money will end up." "Yes, I'm sure."
A few days later, money hadn't been transferred. Bank says it's gone. I HAD to speak to NS&I. Noooooo. To be fair they helpfully told me that the bank hadn't quoted the account reference and so had gone into their suspense account pending return to my account. Complained to the bank, they paid me compensation for their cock-up.
Some weeks later... exactly the same thing happened, right down to the reference still not being quoted. FFS.
Lesson learned: Never PUSH money into accounts such as this. Much better to PULL it in by logging in to the beneficiary website and paying that way.