Wrong account number given wages gone astray

bujin

Hi All,
Just wanted to know what we'd need to do.My daughter has started a new job she has accidentally given a wrong bank account number everything else was fine, she simply put a 3 here there should have been a 9.
First what's the chances of an account existing for it to be credited into?
Second how long will it take to bounce back?
Third does she need to do anything or should her wages dept deal with it.

Last of all if it has gone into someone's account are they legally expected to return it, I seem to have heard something recently where someone said that you can keep it?
Many Thanks

agrinnall

Replacing a single digit should result in an invalid account number, but whether it gets bounced back or shipped off to a suspense account depends on how her bank deals with the situation (as an aside, if the employer uses Faster Payments for wages then the transfer will fail anyway, but they might use another method).

If it does bounce back it should really be just a few days, but I've seen posts on here suggesting it could take up to 2 weeks.

Your daughter cannot do anything other than ask the wages department to get their bank to recall the payment as she is not a party to the transaction that has actually taken place.

It's a bit of a grey area about whether it should be returned, if the account holder refuses to co-operate there's not much the bank can do, but I suspect that if the rightful owner of the money (in this case the employer) were to take court action then they would probably be successful in recovering the money - but the difficulty might be finding out who had it in order to take them to court. But that's a worst case scenario.

gfplux

She should ask the wages department very nicely to help her as they have done nothing wrong. She is the one who gave the wrong account number.
Hopefully her employer will help her recover the money. They have no obligation to replace the money.
There have been a number of case involving quite large amounts of money that have taken months, if ever, to resolve.
Lets hope she is lucky.

mulronie

agrinnall wrote: »

as an aside, if the employer uses Faster Payments for wages then the transfer will fail anyway, but they might use another method

BACS is still the order of the day for almost all employers with more than a handful of staff.

agrinnall wrote: »

I suspect that if the rightful owner of the money (in this case the employer) were to take court action then they would probably be successful in recovering the money

I wouldn't be so confident saying the employer is the rightful owner of the money. They have discharged their 'debt' (i.e. the wages owed) to their employee by paying to the account details they were provided with.

It would be worth OP's daughter phoning her own bank and explain the situation (I assume the sortcode was correct). They may be able to see if funds have been received to the incorrect details, and advise what happened to them.

bujin

Thanks all. I'm inclined to agree with mulronie, the wages have been paid so the employer has fulfilled their part ofthe bargain.
I'll get her to ring her bank today and seek some advice there. Thanks again.

someone

gfplux wrote: »

Hopefully her employer will help her recover the money. They have no obligation to replace the money.
There have been a number of case involving quite large amounts of money that have taken months, if ever, to resolve.
Lets hope she is lucky.

Payroll systems produce quite a bit more of an audit trail than simply fudging an online transfer. Combined with payslip, employment contract etc this should be a simple case for the bank to resolve (i.e. there is unlikely to be any question over who is entitled to the money).

Most likely the money will in a invalid account which will either auto bounce back or the employer will have to request it back. If it did end up been paid into someones account then there are processes to reclaim it.

Lokolo

http://www.postcodeanywhere.co.uk/demos/bankvalidator.aspx

You can check the combination here.

mr_fishbulb

bujin wrote: »

Thanks all. I'm inclined to agree with mulronie, the wages have been paid so the employer has fulfilled their part ofthe bargain.
I'll get her to ring her bank today and seek some advice there. Thanks again.

Has she even asked her employer? That's where I'd start. They're not likely to say "Tough - we've put the money into the account you told us". They are also there to help.

She's not going to get very far with the bank.

If I turned up at my bank and said "Some company paid money into an account that isn't mine. Please can you take it out of that account and put it into my one" I would get laughed out the door.