issued wrong sort code - now customer not paying

Anne42

Hello everyone,
I hope someone will be able to help me because I am close to a nervous breakdown.

My husband and I have started our own business after he has been made redundant in January last year. He has completed a job for a company and I (foolishly) when asked for our bank details quoted a cheque number instead of a sort code. The account number I quoted was correct.

The client claims to have made a payment to us on the 23rd December.
After researching the "sort code" we have found out that the code belonged to a London Branch of the Bank of Ireland but it now does not exist anymore. The lady at the BOI kindly checked the account number and luckily that one doesn't exist either. So good news on this front because it means that the money could not have been paid to another person/ company but is still floating about in the banks system.

Our customer banks with Lloyds TSB and according to Lloyds (so our customer claims) they are waiting for BOI to come back with the details of where the money is, but the BOI does not answer their questions.

We have been told that the procedure for money that has been paid into a non existed account is as follows: BOI said it would send the money back to lloyds within 5 to 10 working days; lloyds is saying that it would transfer the money back to its customer's account within 3 - 5 working days. In the unlikely event that it has been placed in a holding account it would take 10 days to reach the originating account.

We are not allowed to chase the money directly because we have not made the payment. So we are reliant on our customer and the banks to chase it for us. Our customer now said that Lloyds told them they are still waiting to hear from BOI. They will make one last attempt and if they don't get a response than it would be up to our customer to sort it. They of course will not do anything because as far as they are concerned they have made a payment using the details I have supplied.

I realise I am at fault for looking at the wrong number, but there must be a way of retrieving the funds. Otherwise it's the perfect excuse to not pay someone.

Sorry for rambling on but I hope someone can help. I just don't know what else to do and loosing the money would hit us quite hard.

Thank you
Anne

greyteam1959

In my experience the money will come back to your account by itself without you doing anything ( hopefully).
I have made payments from my company account to another company and used the wrong details, the money has appeared back in my account within 10 days or so.
The time scale will depend on lots of things...which bank / overseas etc etc.
Just keep a watchful eye on things.
The payment might have gone back to their account and the are playing the 'delaying' tactic (!!!) Oh we don't know where the money has gone !!

Anne42

Thanks for your reply.

That is our suspicion. But how can we prove this? If our customer just keeps saying they have not received the money back and neither bank will confirm that they have returned the funds because we are not the company that has made the payment how can we prove anything?

It is so frustrating. I am really angry with myself for having made such a stupid mistake...

Colin2511

hi, I did exactly the same about 3 years ago..It was for a large amount for our small company, so I know exactly how you are feeling, at the time it was all I could think about, - I also got the complete run-around from the suppler (I was paying upfront pro-forma for stock to a new company and got the sort code wrong)

Previous answers are correct on the process, if there is no account of that name, then it goes to a suspense and is returned to the bank it came from - then it should get deposited in the persons accont. - You are lucky that bank of Ireland told you it was not a correct account, Lloyds would not tell me, and said if it went in someone account and they withdrew it it was my fault and i would not be able to get the persons details.

I have been hunting and cannot find the details of the person who helped me, but it was someone from the banking ombudsmen, (he helped me iwth the process and talked to the banks so we found where the money went)

As it was my fault, not the suppliers, I paid them agian...and then they went silent when the original payment hit their account as well :mad: - this is where i struck lucky, someone at Lloyds had seen the company name, and even though the wrong details were on, looked it up and then deposited it, this apparently was against the rules, and meant that they were then liable for paying it to someone elses account from the instructiosn, which meant I was allowed to request they "snatch it back" as the supplier had gone quiet and would not answer the phone

Took about 3 weeks to get sorted, and as soon as I had the stock I closed the account with that supplier, I was fully aware it was my error in the beginning, but to keep silent and then refuse my calls when both payments had arrived in his account did not inspire trust :mad:

Anne42

Thank you Colin.

We were indeed very lucky for the person from the BOI to check the sort code and account number for us. It took a few phonecalls but in the end we were able to speak to someone who was sympathetic to my error.

Since the company name/ person's name is supplied when making a payment the banks should use this information along with the sort code and account number provided. If the information doesn't match then the money should be send back to the person that has tried making the payment. Especially considering how difficult it is to find out where the money has gone. It's so easy to note a wrong number down or to swap a couple of digits roundand having to rely on someone's honesty doesn't seem to work.

The ombudsman is a good idea. I will write everything I found out so far down and pass it on.

I will not make this mistake again...ever.
Thank you again.