I was paid money by a company.How can I definitively trace this payment?

yogiberr

hiya,

I've received a payment into my bank account and I'm trying to trace the company who made it. I went to my bank ( bank of scotland) and they could only tell me:
1) The bank that the money came from (HSBC)
2) The reference ()
3) then another piece of info that I couldn't work out, the alleged company name.

However, this is not the compnay name.

How I can take this info and definitively identify this company via companies house or otherwise?

Many thanks,

yogi

HO87

Were you expecting the amount you received from any company or was it a complete surprise?

ERICS_MUM

If you were not expecting this money and you don't know who sent it, you should instruct your bank in writing to return it to the BoS.

BoS will know which customer's account they debited and they should ask that company for more details, which they then pass onto HSBC for you. The customer or BoS might have got the account number or sort code wrong and someone else might be expecting this money.

This might possibly be some sort of fraud/scam, but hopefully BoS correctly completed their due diligence obligations when they opened the account, to ensure that the company was bona fide.

Don't be tempted to hold onto the money until/unless someone asks for it back. Act now, confirm all your phone conversations and instructions in writing.

Good luck.

Linda

Zazen999

Google both the company name and the name that you have been given. It is a regular occurrence for a company to be called something but trading as something else; and the banking details will be different from the name that you think it should be.

ie google

'company name' & 'other name' and press 'search'

and see if the connection is there.

yogiberr

hiya folks,

Ta for the replies.Yes, I was expecting the money.Googling didn't provide any further clues, besides, it would not be definitive.

I need to know, definitively, how to get the trading name of the company, given the info that I obtained from the bank.

Why won't the bank tell me.I know that when I set up in business, the bank wanted to know, everything, absolutely everything, including my trading name.

So, the bank have this information, otherwise, the company couldn't have opened an account. The issue is therefore not the lack of information, but their refusal to give me it.

How can I force them to tell me?

ta,

yogi

HO87

HSBC will know but your bank will not and can only pass on the references included in the transaction details. Your bank have no means of obtaining the details from BoS anymore than you do because of client confidentiality. Individual customers and indeed companies are perfectly at liberty to arrange their banking to suit them and how they do so is their business. One could imagine, for example, that in a small firm who are suffering in the recession that directors may chose to make certain payments on behalf of the company from their personal accounts. This is not the sort of thing that they would want publicised.

I don't quite get this though, if you were expecting the money and you know where it came from and it was a BACS payment then this would normally contain a reference element you will recognise. Also, why do you need to be able to definitively prove it if you were expecting it and know where it came from?

yogiberr

hiya,

Sadly, I need to know because they owe me money. Any suggestions?

Ta

HO87

As they say, I refer you to my previous answer. For perfectly good confidentiality reasons how any company conducts its business is - their business - always provided it is legal and lifting the lid will not be easy. Presumably you are in a situation where a company owe you money, are claiming poverty and you suspect otherwise.

There are other ways of tackling this sort of situation legally but as always they aren't cost free and run the risk of yielding nothing leaving you further out of pocket.