Money transferred to wrong account, bank won't pay it back.

simax

happs wrote: »

And i'm bound to say i meant to send it to my father whose account is listed above my friends in the dropdown.

...and you'd be lying, wouldn't you?

*facepalm*

Upshot - your friend got his money regardless. It's paid £100 of his debt off.

catfish50

happs wrote: »

Seriously? What "hit" are the bank taking? I sent them money by mistake, the only party taking a "hit" is myself.

As things stand, no one is "taking a hit".

- you sent money to your friend voluntarily, so no loss to you
- your friend received the money you sent, so no loss to him
- the bank has recovered £100 of the money owed by your friend

No one has lost, no one has got money that doesn't belong to them.

Riddle me this, lets say Lloyds decide, out the goodness of their heart, to refund my money but accidentally miss out the decimal point and send me £10000. Does anyone think i'd have a leg to stand on if i withdrew it all and blew it? No, i'd end up in jail - so why doesn't that work both ways?

If at the same time Lloyds had an outstanding debt to you of £10,000 or more, you'd have a very good couple of legs to stand on.

zppp

With Faster Payments, if this was genuinely a situation where you had mistakenly transferred funds to the wrong account, or for the wrong amount, all your bank can do is write to the payee's bank, in this case Lloyds. The letter would go to Lloyds and would be passed to the account holder to ask them to return the money. Faster Payments cannot be reversed and if an account is overdrawn with Lloyds with no agreed overdraft, I don't really see how your friend can make a transfer back. It is up to the account holder to transfer it back and if they don't you could take the friend to court for a mistaken credit.

OP, as others have said, you have no way forward here, and you will lose if you go to small claims against Lloyds, which will cost almost as much as the transfer you made with Lloyd's costs.

pmduk

OP, in case you haven't noticed, all of the responses in this thread have been to suggest that the bank hasn't done you any wrong. Do you really think you are still in the right?

I'm sorry, but I doubt you will get this money back. Certainly not from the bank, as from your friend? well you know him better than we do.

happs

zppp wrote: »

With Faster Payments, if this was genuinely a situation where you had mistakenly transferred funds to the wrong account, or for the wrong amount, all your bank can do is write to the payee's bank, in this case Lloyds. The letter would go to Lloyds and would be passed to the account holder to ask them to return the money. Faster Payments cannot be reversed and if an account is overdrawn with Lloyds with no agreed overdraft, I don't really see how your friend can make a transfer back. It is up to the account holder to transfer it back and if they don't you could take the friend to court for a mistaken credit.

OP, as others have said, you have no way forward here, and you will lose if you go to small claims against Lloyds, which will cost almost as much as the transfer you made with Lloyd's costs.

Thank you, that's a pretty concise answer.

happs

pmduk wrote: »

OP, in case you haven't noticed, all of the responses in this thread have been to suggest that the bank hasn't done you any wrong. Do you really think you are still in the right?

I'm sorry, but I doubt you will get this money back. Certainly not from the bank, as from your friend? well you know him better than we do.

Yes, I don't think it's right that an honest mistake can't be reversed, apparently i'm alone in that.

casper_g

happs wrote: »

Yes, I don't think it's right that an honest mistake can't be reversed, apparently i'm alone in that.

It can be reversed, by the person you sent the money to (your friend) returning it. If he can't return it to you from that account because there's no money in it, that's his problem. He'll have to either pay you back on payday, borrow the money from someone else, sell something to raise the funds, come to another arrangement with you e.g. to pay you back in instalments or provide you with goods/service in lieu of the money, or whatever else the two of you agree to.

If you'd posted him a couple of fifty quid notes, and he'd put them in his wallet and spent them down the casino, you couldn't ask the Royal Mail to give them back to you, nor blame his wallet because they weren't in it. As it is, the roles of the postie and the wallet were both played by his bank, and instead of spending it down the casino he's used it to pay off £100 of his overdraft. Otherwise it seems similar to me.

catfish50

casper_g wrote: »

It can be reversed, by the person you sent the money to (your friend) returning it. If he can't return it to you from that account because there's no money in it, that's his problem. He'll have to either pay you back on payday, borrow the money from someone else, sell something to raise the funds, come to another arrangement with you e.g. to pay you back in instalments or provide you with goods/service in lieu of the money, or whatever else the two of you agree to.

Or possibly he could sue the OP for the money. There was a thread a few weeks ago from someone whose employer paid his salary into the wrong account -- paid it into an heavily overdrawn account which the person had walked away from. So the salary disappeared into the overdraft. That person was going to try to hold his employer liable and get the salary paid a second time. I wonder if he succeeded.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3200718

2sides2everystory

This is a very interesting conundrum and all moralising aside one would think it might still be possible for the recipient to ask his bank as a matter of normal banking service to return the money to the OP as it was sent in error.

Fact is that it was sent to the account in error, so there is no lie to be told by the recipient.

I do think the OP should desist from any attempt himself at trying to force the issue from his side. Egg on face is the most likely result if he does. Fact is a silly mistake was made and it is one that can only be rectified by the recipient.

I think the recipient could attempt to get this rectified by a simple letter to his bank. A telephone call is more likely to go off the rails.

He can rightly say that someone who has transfered some money on a previous occasion sent the money to that account by mistake, and that person would like it to be sent back asap. Recipient can confirm he has no objection to the matter being rectified that way but is asking the bank to do it because he cannot action it himself because of his unauthorised overdraft situation.

I would be really interested to learn of the recipient's bank's response

For example, would they say
(a) "Sorry but we do not rectify mistakes unless we make them" (unlikely).
(b) "Sorry but because you owe us money we will take it however we can get it - the other guy can whistle for it" (unlikely)
(c) "Sorry but because your account is seriously out of order there will be an administration charge of £100 to do this"
(d) "OK - we've reversed it. Have a nice day"
(e) "OK - we've reversed it, but we are sending the boys round"
or
(f) Something else ...

catfish50

2sides2everystory wrote: »

(a) "Sorry but we do not rectify mistakes unless we make them" (unlikely).
(b) "Sorry but because you owe us money we will take it however we can get it - the other guy can whistle for it" (unlikely)

Both of these seem very likely to me. Nobody has any legal responsibility to rectify somebody else's mistake, and in this case to do so would actually cost the bank money. And the bank's not "taking the money however they can get it" -- it was paid into an account and duly credited.