The bloke that sits next to me at work has not slept for several days now, at the weekend he paid £3000 in to a bank account to repay a friend.(yes this was in cash leaving him with a small piece of paper showing he paid the money in) Unfortunately he got the bank account number wrong by one digit….. now this was his error but he is having problems finding out how he can get his money back. The only think I can think or is to go to the Citizens advice. Any other ideas?

Ask the bank?

He tried that, they won't tell him whos account it is due to the data protaction act.

Did the destination account holder name & number match up?
Ask the banks, as a first step.
What did they say?

And put something in writing to the bank, now

If he got it wrong by 1 digit, the account will almost certainly not exist, as there is almost always a check digit included in account numbers. The receiving bank should have checked the account and told him there and then.

I think that it's illegal to hang on to money you know isn't yours that was accidently put in you account, so he should get it back eventually. If the bank is unresponsive threaten to make an official complaint.

get onto the bank asap. there is some law about monies credited in error and the recipient has to give it back…banks use it all the time when they make similar mistakes

the longer you leave it the harder that will be – he will have to hope the person who got it doesnt have internet banking!

I did something like this once, and the bank just put the money back in my account for me.

Think it may have been another of their accounts though.

One of my contractors gave me the wrong bank details and had a little more trouble getting his pay,, but he got there in the end.

Don;t know how useful that is, but perhaps it will clam your friend down a bit.

I'm fairly sure the bank will comply. The lucky account holder can be done for theft if they spend/dont give it back. But it takes time. I had 300 quid credited (by the bank not an individual) to me by accident once and attempted to keep it, in the blind belief that the banks error was my legal gain. There were some pretty heavy letters from the bank and a phone call from the local fraud team at the Police that gave me the impression that my liberty was under threat. I relented pronto..

If you know the account number it was paid into you could make a series of deposits in 1p and 2p amounts to send a message by morse code perhaps?

it'll be sitting in a suspense account somewhere, he just needs to raise a claim with the bank. Very unlikely it's gone into an individual's account, they set the numbers up so this sort of thing doesn't/can't happen…

Contact the bank and let them know about the mistake.

the bank has confirmed that the money has been credited to an account and that it is a business account but thats it. Now yes when the business comes to run the year end they should see that they have £3000 extra but that could take a while. (I asked him about the paying in slip and it was just the sort code and account number no name was filled out on the paying in slip….)

the account holder into which it has been paid will be deemed to hold it on a constructive trust now, due to the error. equitable title remains with the person making the error, so there is not a risk of it being lost forever even if spent already.

if he has no receipt/record of the credit – which is absolutely stupid, rankly – then he/a lawyer needs to write a letter to the bank outlining the position and informing them that he'll be charging them the lost interest on the £3k if they don't sort out where it went and get it back.

"this was in cash leaving him with a small piece of paper showing he paid the money in"

if he has a receipt and is sayign it was credited in error then he should just go and camp out in a branch until someone sorts it out.

Ask the bank to retrieve it.

He won't be able to get the details himself for sure but his bank will and wonder how much they will charge…

I think the person who got the money can keep it…woohoo!

http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/some-idiot-put-3-grand-into-my-account-what-bike-should-i-buy

😆

I don't understand this. Anytime I've ever paid money into an account you need account number, sort code, name of bank and the name of the account holder you are paying the money into.

If you get the account number wrong by one digit then surely the name of the account holder would be different and therefor not match up to the details.

Thanks for all your help, I will pass on your coments.

Someone paid money into my account (only a few hundred quid) by mistake. I got a letter from their bank asking if I could pay it back – however it was up to me. I paid it back immediately.

I guess you just need to hope!

The account name is not a required field (its as good idea for all the reasons above) but you only need a sort code and account number to deposit money

Yes, a bank will not credit money to an account if the name provided does not correspond to the account number.

I know this because somebody tried to pay a sum into my personal account instead of my business account, and the bank wouldn't let him.

Remind the bank of their obligations under the money laundering regulations.

You do NOT need a name on an account to pay money into it, only sort code and account number.

and if you pay cash into a well known high street building society using their 'counter' paying in slips, the reciept you get doesnt tell you which account it went to.

🙁

I managed to transfer money into the wrong building society a/c once online (Barclays) once but noticed straight away and contacted the bank who reversed the transaction immediately.

Contact bank immediately and explain the transfer was made in error. They should sort it out. I did the same thing with online banking once, contacted them straight away and they sorted it.

Why on earth the system doesn't have some error checking I don't know, it's very easy to transpose or mistype a digit, and there are simple ways to ensure that if you did this it wouldn't give a meaningful account number, but clearly the banks can't be bothered with making things safer.

It happened to me once, phonebanking person had done it wrong, took a few days to get it traced & recovered.

Oops that's gone a bit wrong…

Go to the Bank then Police

I think the error checking depends on the bank, as different systems will issue accounts in different ranges.

The error checking on an IBAN is very clever, I designed a validator for it a while back. Impossible to transpose digits or get any of them wrong.

Back to the OP, the bank can put in a claim to the recipient, but it's not immediate – the recipient needs to confirm the credit was in error – it'd be like you paying someone money then changing your mind and taking it back.

There was something on the local news like this a few months back, someone paid 5k to the wrong number online.

The bank wouldn't say who it went to and this woman obviously just hit a dead end. Must have contacted the press as a last resort but don't think she ever saw the cash again.

Thanks everyone (tinribz I will probrbly not tell his that one as he is already very worried about it) 🙂

Hw has now spoken to the company that has his money, and they are saying that they will only return £2500 of his £3000 as it was has fault!!!!

that can't be right can it?

thay have confirmed that they are not owed to the money but are saying that they have the right to keep some of it….. this does not sound right to me.

he needs to get some professional advice.

no, it doesn't sound right and there's probably a legal way of getting it all back but if he starts negotiating with this company he may end up prejudicing any actions he might subsdequently take. A solicitors letter to them would probably mean he gets the lot back and will cost him less than £500 and them a lot more to contest.

What a lovely company – charging £500 to be helpful. Surely the money isn't there's and they have to return it or they are breaking the law?

Thats what I think Tiger-roach, I could see that they could argue that it would take them "a moment" to arrange the payment and that they may want to charge (Keep) £50 for their trouble but £500 is taking the Pi$$. In opinion anyway.

I would ring the police. It has to be theft surely?

TreeWhatTree…. – Member

Hw has now spoken to the company that has his money, and they are saying that they will only return £2500 of his £3000 as it was has fault!!!!

that can't be right can it?

thay have confirmed that they are not owed to the money but are saying that they have the right to keep some of it….. this does not sound right to me.

Cheeky little buggers. How did he get their details in the end?

My advice to him was to wait untill he has the £2500 and then call the police and get a case number and then go to the citizens advice and ask them to contact the company on his behalf and try to get the last £500 back. Sound OK?

I'm not sure how he got their information, I will ask… 🙂

Doing that might prejudice his case tho

Dishonestly retaining a wrongful credit (Scetion 24A Theft Act)

(1)A person is guilty of an offence if—

(a)a wrongful credit has been made to an account kept by him or in respect of which he has any right or interest;

(b)he knows or believes that the credit is wrongful; and

(c)he dishonestly fails to take such steps as are reasonable in the circumstances to secure that the credit is cancelled.

(I'm not sure (c) would necessarily apply due to the requirement for dishonesty, which isn't evident from what you've said, but that's the offence I would be shouting about to them if it was my money)