Lost £212.90 on Bank Wire transaction

rollonretirement

I recently made a purchase with a company called Kitco Metals in Canada for the sum of £4,947.93. I arranged with my bank Lloyds TSB to send a Bank Wire to Kitco’s bank which is the HSBC Canada for this amount. I made it clear to Lloyds that the money was to be sent as sterling and any charges by the recipient bank to be made to me. However only £4,735.03 arrived in Kitco’s bank account.

I have checked with Lloyds and they definitely sent £4,947.93, but Kitco are adamant that only £4,735.03 was received. This means I have to pay them a further £212.90.

Does anyone know if there is an independent obudsman or something I can go to about this? I have no idea who to go to for help.

DeeMarie89

I'd ask Kitco to prove that they have not received it, as you have proof that you have sent it. Failing that, would Lloyds allOw you to reverse the transaction?

jonesMUFCforever

No Lloyds would not be allowed to reverse the transaction without the beneficiary bank's consent.

What might have happened is that correspondent banks might have been involved in the transfer plus the fact that you were sending sterling to a country who's currency is dollars.

We don't know who is to blame for this - to be honest I cannot see a Canadian company asking for payment in sterling so who decided this was the way for payment to be done?

Kitco might have converted the sterling back to CAD and using a buying rather than the selling rate indeed could have lost 5% of the transaction or £200 or thereabouts.

We need to know the terms of payment on the invoice to advice further.

bengalknights

It sounds a lot like the forex rate was wrong at the receiving end.

5% does seem to be the general difference between buying and selling rates.

jonesMUFCforever

bengalknights wrote: »

It sounds a lot like the forex rate was wrong at the receiving end.

5% does seem to be the general difference between buying and selling rates.

OP says he sent sterling.

rollonretirement

jonesMUFCforever wrote: »

No Lloyds would not be allowed to reverse the transaction without the beneficiary bank's consent.

What might have happened is that correspondent banks might have been involved in the transfer plus the fact that you were sending sterling to a country who's currency is dollars.

We don't know who is to blame for this - to be honest I cannot see a Canadian company asking for payment in sterling so who decided this was the way for payment to be done?

Kitco might have converted the sterling back to CAD and using a buying rather than the selling rate indeed could have lost 5% of the transaction or £200 or thereabouts.

We need to know the terms of payment on the invoice to advice further.

Hi,

The company wanted the payment in sterling. I was buying a stock of silver. It is usual for this particular company to accept payment in the currency of another country as they make an allowance for the currency conversion at the point of sale.

I have sinced checked my Lloyds TSB account and found that I have also been charged an "agent fee" of £9.70, so perhaps this agent did make some sort of currency conversion charge, but this was uneccessary as the funds didn't need to be converted.

A week earlier I made a purchase from my other bank account (Intelligent Finance) and interestingly they didn't use an agent.

What's frustrating is that Lloyds say that they don't know who the agent bank is that the HSBC Canada use and Kitco say that HSBC Canada don't know what agent bank Lloyds use!

The bank wire instruction from Kitco have a "correspondent" bank address for HSBC, in London (The International Branch). I would try getting in touch with them, but I guess they won't discuss it with me as I don't have an account with them.

System

rollonretirement wrote: »

The bank wire instruction from Kitco have a "correspondent" bank address for HSBC, in London (The International Branch). I would try getting in touch with them, but I guess they won't discuss it with me as I don't have an account with them.

Indeed so. Your contract is with Lloyds. You instructed them to transfer GBP4,947.93 to Kitco, fees and charges to be met by you. Lloyds didn't do this. Who screwed up where, is Lloyds' problem. Check what Lloyds complaints procedure is, and complain formally to Lloyds, demanding £212.90 plus £100 for your annoyance and wasted time. If Lloyds do not respond satisfactorily to your complaint within the 8 weeks deadline, refer the matter to the Financial Services Ombudsman.
My guess (which I stress is only a guess) would be that a muppet at Lloyds decided to convert GBP4947.93 to CAD, taking Lloyds markup, and sent these CAD to Kitco's GBP account with HSBC Canada, who converted them back to GBP, taking HSBC Canada's markup.

lpgm

I think several different things could 'go wrong' with this transaction. For a start, was the money actually going to a sterling account?

rollonretirement wrote: »

I made it clear to Lloyds that the money was to be sent as sterling and any charges by the recipient bank to be made to me.

It does look like the recipient bank has made a charge for receiving the money, although £200 sounds quite a bit. In any case, I don't see how Lloyds could have agreed to pass on to you charges they have nothing to do with. And they obviously didn't pass them on.

mclaren32

It sounds like Lloyds sent £4947 worth of Canadian Dollars which was then converted back to Sterling when it hit the beneficaries bank. It is fairly rare to send sterling abroad and it would be a relatively easy mistake to make.

Check with Lloyds to see what they actually sent.

rollonretirement

YoungNick wrote: »

Indeed so. Your contract is with Lloyds. You instructed them to transfer GBP4,947.93 to Kitco, fees and charges to be met by you. Lloyds didn't do this. Who screwed up where, is Lloyds' problem. Check what Lloyds complaints procedure is, and complain formally to Lloyds, demanding £212.90 plus £100 for your annoyance and wasted time. If Lloyds do not respond satisfactorily to your complaint within the 8 weeks deadline, refer the matter to the Financial Services Ombudsman.
My guess (which is stress is only a guess) would be that a muppet at Lloyds decided to convert GBP4947.93 to CAD, taking Lloyds markup, and sent these CAD to Kitco's GBP account with HSBC Canada, who converted them back to GBP, taking HSBC Canada's markup.

Many thanks for your reply. Looks like I might have to go down the complaint route. I find it ridiculous that Lloyds won't at least just offer to look into the matter further for me. I will ring them again on Tuesday to see if I can talk to a supervisor, who might be more helpful.

iereboy

Please don't ask to speak to a supervisor.

Ask to make a complaint first. Get the reference number and then ask to speak to the Customer Service Recovery Unit. (complaints team)

Get the ball rolling that way. Supervisors won't have a clue. Agents know more than them. If the complaints team cannot offer a solution, take your complaint to the Financial Services Ombudsman. Call on Tuesday morning when complaints is open.