Urgent Help Needed!

James_Bond

Hi there.

I was supposed to give someone money through my bank account but I've (very stupidly) transferreed the money to the wrong account. i.e, of a complete stranger.

Please could you give me any advice on what I could do in order to get my money back.

Thanks in Advance.

sgx.saint

Your first point of contact should be the bank. They should be able to recover the funds, although this may take some time depending on your bank.

Mikeyorks

sgx.saint wrote:

Your first point of contact should be the bank.

Fully agree with that .. and you need to do it quickly. If you've done a BACS transfer they may be able to do a recall on it. But you do need to move sharply.

AndyR_3

You can do a BACs recall on the day you made the payment, or the day after. Recalling a payment the day after may incur a fee.

Otherwise you need to speak to your bank and ask if they can help you recover the funds. They're not obliged to, however, and if they say no, ask them to provide the address of the bank whose sort code you transferred to and write to the manager of that bank asking for help.

squashy

James_Bond wrote:

Hi there.

I was supposed to give someone money through my bank account but I've (very stupidly) transferreed the money to the wrong account. i.e, of a complete stranger.

Please could you give me any advice on what I could do in order to get my money back.

Thanks in Advance.

If it's just that you have got one digit wrong, you may be in luck as the way banks number their accounts means that they safeguard against this (sorry, can't think of a way of explaining this easily!), meaning that the "destination account" that you stated might not exist at all in which case your transfer will bounce back.

Having said that, I agree that you should act as quickly as possible to get in touch with your bank.

Mikeyorks

squashy wrote:

If it's just that you have got one digit wrong, you may be in luck as the way banks number their accounts means that they safeguard against this (sorry, can't think of a way of explaining this easily!),

I read ('complete stranger') that he'd picked a specific account number up - but the wrong one. But if, as you say, he's simply got a digit wrong (or transposed) - then account numbers are check digit protected and there's a good possibility that would bounce from the receiving Bank.

But he still needs to move quickly and cover all the bases.

EDIT

Remember putting a definition on an earlier post a couple of months ago :-

Having said that - most reference numbers are check digit protected (the components of the reference are multiplied by various factors and a check character is calculated and placed in a specific position in the ref). And a single character error, such as you describe, will create an invalid reference in the receiving organisation. so it will not match another account - will go into suspense whilst they resolve it. Then they will write you and politely advise you to sort your payment out in future. (But unlike a lot of contributors to these threads - they won't demand compensation for the trouble you've caused them !!)

oldwiring

squashy wrote:

If it's just that you have got one digit wrong, you may be in luck as the way banks number their accounts means that they safeguard against this (sorry, can't think of a way of explaining this easily!), meaning that the "destination account" that you stated might not exist at all in which case your transfer will bounce back.

Having said that, I agree that you should act as quickly as possible to get in touch with your bank.

FWIW modulus checks are sums done on account numbers, sometimes combined with the sort-code to prove validity. Frequently each digit in a number is weighted by a multiplier and the results for each digit are added together. The result is divided by another numbers usually a prime. If the dividend is an integer, the account number is valid. Here is a simple example based on a form of modulus 11 check.

Digits in no Weight DxW
3 8 24
0 7 0
7 6 42
2 5 10
4 4 16
6 3 18
9 2 18
4 1 4
Sum DxW 132

Even thos simple method is good especially against transpositions and two modulus checks of different kinds in combination are very powerful.

Mc4ndy

If you make those numbers green, and added a few more I'd be thinking I was looking at the Matrix.

hjb123

A couple of months ago I accidently paid the wrong person/company through my online banking. Rather than pay a huge chunk off my M&S card I accidently paid it to Barclaycard. I rang the online banking people up and they said ring back in a couple of days when they would try and reverse the payment - this I did and they got the payment back - I cant tell you how relieved I was!

Mikeyorks

Nice of the OP to put this in two places .... but not tell the major thread it was sorted?:rolleyes:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?p=3300868#post3300868

James_Bond

Mikeyorks wrote:

Nice of the OP to put this in two places .... but not tell the major thread it was sorted?:rolleyes:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?p=3300868#post3300868

Oops! Sorry everyone:o

Thanks very much for your advice.

Yes, it is finally sorted, the reason I posted it twice was because it was urgent, sorry about that.

Thanks for your time everyone.