payment account # error - did it go through?

white_noise

last year (feb 2008) i paid someone for some goods though an online transaction, the goods never arrived (but thats a different story), anyway i have been going over the details of this transaction and it appears that i have paid it into the wrong account, i missed out one digit of the account (first one), but the name and sort code is correct. the thing is the seller has given me a e-mail conformation that they recieved the funds, though how can they if the acount number was wrong?
unfortunatly i have since closed the account down but do have a PDF of the payees details showing the error in the account number and a PDF of the statement of the money going out of my account.
i would have thought that if the account number was wrong the payment wouldn't have gone through, though it looks that it has as the money went out of my account and the seller confirmed it.
is there anyway that my bank can confirm that the money went through and the seller recieved it rather than it sitting in a random persons account.
what usually happens if you enter in payment details wrongly?
Cheers
WN

Extant

Was the first digit a zero? If it was, it may still have been to process through normally.

If not, the account number would just be plain wrong - and should then have bounced back to the remitting bank.

white_noise

BarclaysManager wrote: »

Was the first digit a zero? If it was, it may still have been to process through normally.

If not, the account number would just be plain wrong - and should then have bounced back to the remitting bank.

nope the first digit was a four, i have a statement saying that £400 went out of my account on the 21/02/08 and nothing being bounced back as the statement goes to 9th may 2008.
so it must have gone through or is sitting in limbo somewhere!
WN

mysparrow

Hi try this...
http://www.postcodeanywhere.co.uk/demos/bankvalidator.aspx

It lets you see whether the account no & sort code are linked to a valid account, if they do then that's where your money is. I'm afraid they don't bother to check if the name you've given matches! If it's not valid your money should come straight back (or not really go anywhere in the first place!)

anniecave

That link only checks sort codes and known account number criteria - it doesn't actually check that the account number actually exists.

anniecave

If the seller is saying they received the funds, then I wouldn't worry.
It could be that the account number you gave is not a valid number, but the bank manually credited it to the correct place.

This happened to someone I know at work, so it does happen. It depends on how the bank treats incoming payments.

Mikeyorks

The name you provide isn't used as part of the automated match-up to the account.

But it can be used as a secondary level match-up if the name / residue of account number provides a high degree of certainty ... for a clerical fit, from the exception file it would bounce into when the primary match failed.

As the payee confirmed receipt ..... sounds as though that happened?