Santander BACCS Mistake

oxfordUTD

Hi everyone,
Going back to last July, I transferred £500 from an ISA to my Alliance & Leicester account but one of the digits of the account number was wrong. The payment was made to another A&L account just as Santander were buying them out. Having been on holiday for three weeks, I noticed the mistake and got in touch with all concerned. In the opinion of the ISA company (IF) the payment should never have cleared as it was made out 'payee my name'. Santander have been abominable at sorting it out, I have been told so often that there's nothing they can do, the money will be paid in five days or the issue needs to be resolved by IF. After three months of telephone calls, I finally wrote a formal complaint to Santander and the conclusion of their 'investigation' was that there was still nothing they could do. I then took the matter to the Financial Ombudsman with all the records of phone calls and correspondence before Christmas and have today received a response from them that finds in FAVOUR of Santander! I'm absolutely at the end of my tether - is there anything else I can do? All advice gratefully received!!:(

Premier_2

If the payment was made via BACS, then all that was probably used was the sort code & account number.

Unfortunately for you, the error you made resulted in the money going to someone else.

Of course, the person who received it is not entitled to keep it, but perhaps doesn't know how to return it. Your issue is probably with them. If you knew who they were, you could probably get it back, but I'm not sure how you find out who they are. The bank will probably hide behind the DPA to save them doing any digging themselves.

What you could possibly do is ask the bank to contact the recipient on your behalf to see if they would be willing to refund you. But the bank might not be willing to do this (sounds like probably not if you've already complained to them & the FOS) and even if they did, there is no guarantee the recipient would respond.

Edit: Similar issue here in the guardian. The advice given was to contact the police
http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2005/feb/01/consumernews.consumeraffairs1

Annisele

Given that you've had a response from FOS already, I'm guessing it was from an adjudicator and not an ombudsman? (I'm not being sarcastic with the 'already'; it can take FOS quite some time to respond). If it's from an adjudicator, then you can still ask for a final decision from an ombudsman if you think the FOS's initial response is wrong.

I'm assuming the person who made the initial mistake was you, rather than IF or Santander? If that's the case, then I'm afraid I agree that Santander is in the right - it processed the instructions IF gave it, and sent the money to the sort code and account number IF provided to it.

You might also be interested in this and this (particularly 87/04). In light of the 87/04 case, it looks to me as though it's possible that you might have a complaint about IF for failing to warn you that payments would be processed using just the sort code and account number (if it didn't give you such a warning).

oxfordUTD

Thanks for the response guys.

Do you think the issue can be raised with IF with a chance of success given the amount of time that has elapsed? They were the only party that were any help and wrote to Santander stating that the the payment should never have made clearing as the payee was not me. The FOS state that Santander have no obligation to check the payee name which sounds wrong? The FOS have said that Santander have requested the funds be returned from the recipient but they are unable to do so. It sounds like I have two avenues to choose from;

1 Follow it up with IF stating they should have informed me that no payments would be checked against a payee name but only a sort code and account number.

2 Visit the local police station armed with the information to pursue the person civilly. One question on this though, I only have the persons account number and sort code. Will the Police be able to work with this?

I'm going to try and get the Guardian and The Times money sections involved (did try before but never got a reply) in the meantime. Does anyone know of any time limit on these sorts of claims?

Annisele

There are time limits for raising a complaint, but so long as you haven't raised a complaint with IF already you're well within them. (Usually you get six years from the date the event occurred, or three years after the date you first realised you had cause for complaint if that's later - see here. If you have raised a complaint with IF already, then you'd only have six months from the date of its final response).

I don't want to be unfair to IF, but sometimes a firm will appear to be very helpful because it knows that really it's the one that did something wrong. Instead of accepting responsibility, it will 'helpfully' point to all the things some other firm did wrong in the hope the complainant will go away and bother the other firm. Whether that's happened in your case I have no idea.

If you do refer a complaint about IF to the FOS, IF will have to pay FOS a £500 case fee. If you're very lucky it might make a commercial decision to pay that £500 to you rather than potentially have to pay it to FOS.

You could always give the FOS adjudicator a call and see if they will offer any opinion on a potential complaint to IF. They might say "sorry, haven't received a complaint about IF, so it wouldn't be appropriate for me to comment on it" - in which case you'd have lost nothing. They might however give you some sort of "generally we expect firms to do X" - which might give you a pointer as to how to phrase a complaint to IF.

I'm no expert in banking, so I can't tell you whether your option 1 or 2 would get you anywhere (although I suspect that the police wouldn't be particularly interested, I've never tried so I don't know).

dunstonh

In the opinion of the ISA company (IF) the payment should never have cleared as it was made out 'payee my name'

That is clearly not correct though. Unfortunately, that's the standard of telephone staff at call centres.

They were the only party that were any help and wrote to Santander stating that the the payment should never have made clearing as the payee was not me.

They could write and ask for ice cream and chocolate cake but it doesnt mean they will get it.

I then took the matter to the Financial Ombudsman with all the records of phone calls and correspondence before Christmas and have today received a response from them that finds in FAVOUR of Santander!

The response is correct.

The FOS state that Santander have no obligation to check the payee name which sounds wrong?

No its correct. If you use electronic payment methods then sort code and account number are the two bits that need to be correct. Not the name.

The FOS have said that Santander have requested the funds be returned from the recipient but they are unable to do so.

That is all Santander can do. At least they have done it but they have no legal right to take the money from the account.

1 Follow it up with IF stating they should have informed me that no payments would be checked against a payee name but only a sort code and account number.

The FOS have upheld a complaint recently where they found that the sending bank did not have enough disclosure on internet banking as to the importance of getting the details correct. So, there is some possibility there.

2 Visit the local police station armed with the information to pursue the person civilly. One question on this though, I only have the persons account number and sort code. Will the Police be able to work with this?

You will need to ask them. However, other reported cases like this have usually found the police unable to act as the are not able to obtain the details of the person with the money.

oxfordUTD

Thanks everyone, your responses have been clear and thoroughly helpful. Looks like the best course of action is to pursue IF which I will do by formally complaining to them enclosing all the details I sent to the FOS. Should I respond to the adjudicator at the FOS with regards to the complaint about Santander by stating I do not wish to pursue the complaint and accept their decision?