How long does a Bill payment in error take to get fixed?

Victorian_house

I am renovating a house at the moment so needed to pay my roofer £5,520.00. I agreed to do this as a bank transfer as I got a reduction for the bill that way. I went to set this up via online banking on Thursday evening. I got to the stage where it asked to do a security check and to choose a number but all of the phone numbers to validate with were missing.

I called the online banking helpdesk and they said that it was probably because I had opened up a 2nd account the previous week so the details would have changed/gone missing. They weren’t very clear on what the issue was. They indicated that there wasn't anything they could do to process the transaction as adding the number would block transfer setup for 7 working days. They passed me on to customer services who also said that they couldn't do anything to sort things for an online transfer and recommended that I do a phone banking transfer.

I was passed to phone banking and when through security and they set up the details to make the payment. Once they had done that I was advised that it had gone for a fraud check. I waited on hold for 15 minutes for the telephone banking person to get hold of the fraud team but then was told that they had left for the night. I was given a number and a reference and told to call in the morning.

I called in the morning and gave the details. I went through a lengthy series of questions and then the fraud check guy asked me to confirm the details again. He kept having problems with the system not showing the data and asking me for the details again. Eventually he confirmed that the payment had been made.

I confirmed with the roofing company that they had the money on Friday and they said that they did.

On Tuesday I was looking at my account to transfer some money to a different person and noticed that there wasn’t enough money. I went through the transactions and the roofers had been paid again on Monday for the same amount. The roofers don’t seem to think that they have been paid twice (not sure about that, but that is a different issue).

I called the bank and explained this and the young man seemed to think that the bank transfer had gone through without the telephone check. He put a complaint and set up what he called a 'Bank Payment in Error' request as he confirmed that it was their error that 2 payments had been made. I was told that these take normally take 24 hours to process but can take up to 48 hours I was given a reference for that. He also filled in a complaint form on my behalf and gave me a reference for that as well and offered a compensation of £10 for my phone calls to them. This appeared in my account by the time I had finished the call. I still haven’t seen the money back in my account for the BPIE, and also the roofers seem to suddenly not be contactable.

I know that the customer services guy thought that the problem was the online banking transfer going through without the security but I think that the fraud guy managed to set things up again when he couldn’t see the details the first time he put the reference in as he kept saying that it had gone through and then getting me to re-confirm the details.

As the 48 hours had passed I called again today and spoke to another person. She said that the last guy had old information and that the BPIE department took up to 5 working days.

Has anyone had this kind of problem before? It is a lot of money and I will need it soon to pay another tradesman but worry that if things haven’t progressed by Tuesday next week I will then just get told a longer timescale.

InsideInsurance

The bank are really the only ones that can tell you what is going on.

At a wild guess, the first transaction was blocked online because you failed security and went to Fraud.

The second transaction over the telephone was blocked either because of the online one being blocked and/ or of its own accord and went to Fraud

You spoke to Fraud, answered the question correctly and so they lifted the block on the account allowing the two transactions that were in their queue to go through and hence the problem.

Now, obviously this is just a guess as it could equally be that the online transaction didnt ever get recorded due to you being unable to complete security and this second transaction has come from somewhere else.

Somewhere in the path things have gone wrong, and it could well be simply because you've had to deal with multiple people and the chinese whispers effect has come into play.

Ultimately a complaint has been registered and they will have to deal with it.... unfortunately banks work slower than asthmatic slugs with these sorts of things. I'd just make absolutely sure with them that the complaint is still open and being worked on and that they havent closed it down saying the £10 was the end of the matter

Victorian_house

I was assured that he had put in that the customer would be happy that the complaint was resolved with the payment of £10 and the £5520 returned to the account. I made sure that the return of the money was part of the resolution.

The girl I spoke to today assured me that the money would be returned just that it took up to 5 working days for it to go back.

I wonder if a trip to the bank tomorrow will get a clearer response to the status of everything.

InsideInsurance

You can try, most high street banks are little more than sales offices these days with little/ no ability or authority to do anything else as its all centralised in the name of cost cutting and governance.

premierfella

5 working days sounds correct. Though if the payment has gone via Faster Payments (all of the following assumes that this is the case) and your bank admits that the duplicate payment is their error, I'm a little surprised that they haven't simply recredited your account already.

The reason I say this is because, as I understand it, they are on the hook for the cash and what they would have done is send a request for the receiving bank to return the funds. IF the funds are no longer in the roofer's account, I very much doubt that the receiving bank would be required to return the duplicated payment (after all, doing so would potentially leave THEM out of pocket!)

At the very least, if your bank admits fault and the funds have not returned within 5 working days, in your position I would press your bank on crediting your account without any further delay - waiting for them to try and retrieve the funds from the receiving bank really should not be your problem.

Obviously the above would not apply if the bill payment was, for some reason, not sent by Faster Payments or if the bank deny that they have made any error.

pmduk

Please ensure that you have some sort of recourse against the builder. They may have given you a discount, but you've given up a lot of consumer protection in return.

Victorian_house

Thanks for the advice guys, it gets worse. I came home today to a letter from the Payment investigations saying that it isn't a bank error so they won't refund my account. Spent nearly an hour on the phone to the bank again and have another complaint reference and a customer relations person is going to get an investigation made.

They confirmed that the original person had put it in as a bank error but seemingly this other department makes the decisions. They have assured me that it will be processed quickly tomorrow and that someone will call me.

I am going to call the FSA tomorrow as they have a helpline and I may have to do it a complaint with them as they can request to hear all of the phone calls.

I have so little faith in the banks now as I felt messed around enough with the first carry on of not being able to do do the transaction as expected and then being told one thing by one department and then another by another department.

stclair

Do you mean the FOS rather than the FSA?

You need to exhaust the banks complaint procedure first before they will take it up for you. So you will need to wait for 8 weeks to pass before they will be able to assist.

I hope you get it back though :-)

Victorian_house

After many calls to customer relations and opening several complaints they have discovered that the fraud team set up a transfer and a standing order. The bank have now returned the 2nd payment and given me £100 as compensation. So very relieved.

pmduk

Thanks for coming back and updating us. It's often helpful for future enquirers

Agricolae

Glad it was sorted. Banks can take ages to sort things out if their fraud team is involved.