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Bank editing statement entries without warning

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Surely this cant be right.

Recieved credit into my business account. Since its in euros, I always transfer it all out straight away to my brokers (who do sterling exchange). A few days later I checked the credit against invoice and saw that total in bank was xx83 when it should have been xx38. So 45E more.

Anyway, got in touch with customer who paid. They are adamant that they sent right amount (xx38).

So today, I contacted bank. Checked statement and its been edited to xx38 now! No phone calls, no entries on statement to balance, just edited.

Of course, because I did a BACS transfer on day 1 to take it all out its left me 45E overdrawn now! Not happy.

Surely, they cant find a mistake days later and then go back and manually edit it?

Not the first time this has happened. Last year, a large deposit disappeared when someone apparently accidentally deleted it. It was as if it never existed. Luckily, I had a print out of the original statement otherwise they swore blind it never happened!

Surely, they cant edit entries and there should be some sort of audit trail?
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Comments

  • matttye
    matttye Posts: 4,828 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Combo Breaker Debt-free and Proud!
    I'm not sure about the legalities of what the bank did (I'll leave that to somebody else), but it's always a very bad move to withdraw funds you recognise are not yours, as such mistakes are usually corrected in one way or another.

    I paid off an O2 contract early once and it took them about two weeks to withdraw the money from my account. No matter how tempted I was to spend the money, I fought the urge to do so as I fully expected them to withdraw it at some point.
    What will your verse be?

    R.I.P Robin Williams.
  • SnowTiger
    SnowTiger Posts: 4,461 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper Photogenic
    edited 3 April at 1:58PM
    [quote=[Deleted User];discussion/4520273]Surely this cant be right.

    Recieved credit into my business account. Since its in euros, I always transfer it all out straight away to my brokers (who do sterling exchange). A few days later I checked the credit against invoice and saw that total in bank was xx83 when it should have been xx38. So 45E more.

    Anyway, got in touch with customer who paid. They are adamant that they sent right amount (xx38).

    So today, I contacted bank. Checked statement and its been edited to xx38 now! No phone calls, no entries on statement to balance, just edited.

    Of course, because I did a BACS transfer on day 1 to take it all out its left me 45E overdrawn now! Not happy.

    Surely, they cant find a mistake days later and then go back and manually edit it?

    Not the first time this has happened. Last year, a large deposit disappeared when someone apparently accidentally deleted it. It was as if it never existed. Luckily, I had a print out of the original statement otherwise they swore blind it never happened!

    Surely, they cant edit entries and there should be some sort of audit trail?[/QUOTE]

    There will be an audit trail. What you see is just a prettified view of your account.

    However, you appear to have been paying more attention to the balance than the transactions.

    I regularly make payments in US$ from my Natwest (£) account. My available balance drops immediately, but it takes a few days for the transaction itself to show up and it's rarely precisely the same as what the available balance initially dropped by. I know this is the other way around to your situation, though.

    At the end of the day you transferred money out of your account that you knew, or at least suspected, wasn't yours.

    83 and 38: should have gone to Specsavers? :rotfl:
  • jonesMUFCforever
    jonesMUFCforever Posts: 28,898 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper
    What about charges?
    Could that be the difference?
  • matttye wrote: »
    I'm not sure about the legalities of what the bank did (I'll leave that to somebody else), but it's always a very bad move to withdraw funds you recognise are not yours, as such mistakes are usually corrected in one way or another.

    I paid off an O2 contract early once and it took them about two weeks to withdraw the money from my account. No matter how tempted I was to spend the money, I fought the urge to do so as I fully expected them to withdraw it at some point.

    At the time, I didnt know it wasn't mine. I get invoice paid and move total out. I didnt check correct invoice total until later....
  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User] Posts: 0 Newbie
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    edited 28 March 2013 at 12:43AM
    SnowTiger wrote: »
    There will be an audit trail. What you see is just a prettified view of your account.

    However, you appear to have been paying more attention to the balance than the transactions.

    I regularly make payments in US$ from my Natwest (£) account. My available balance drops immediately, but it takes a few days for the transaction itself to show up and it's rarely precisely the same as what the available balance initially dropped by. I know this is the other way around to your situation, though.

    At the end of the day you transferred money out of your account that you knew, or at least suspected, wasn't yours.

    83 and 38: should have gone to Specsavers? :rotfl:

    Hang on now. I invoice my client for various amounts. Its pretty much different every month. They pay direct into the account.

    I do eventually check that the amount recieved is the same as that invoiced - usually at the end of the month. However, money comes in as euros its gets moved out and converted to sterling. At this point I had no clue the bank had made a mistake - why would I? It was roughly the correct figure.

    When I noticed the difference the first thing I did was contact my client to check they hadnt made the mistake. They took a day ro two to check this. Then I contacted bank.

    So are you saying every time I get a credit I need to check the bank hasn't made a mistake? I'm sorry I dont have time to do that more than once a month.
  • Goldiegirl
    Goldiegirl Posts: 8,806 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Rampant Recycler Hung up my suit!
    edited 3 April at 1:58PM
    [quote=[Deleted User];discussion/4520273]Surely this cant be right.

    Recieved credit into my business account. Since its in euros, I always transfer it all out straight away to my brokers (who do sterling exchange). A few days later I checked the credit against invoice and saw that total in bank was xx83 when it should have been xx38. So 45E more.

    Anyway, got in touch with customer who paid. They are adamant that they sent right amount (xx38).

    So today, I contacted bank. Checked statement and its been edited to xx38 now! No phone calls, no entries on statement to balance, just edited.

    Of course, because I did a BACS transfer on day 1 to take it all out its left me 45E overdrawn now! Not happy.

    Surely, they cant find a mistake days later and then go back and manually edit it?

    Not the first time this has happened. Last year, a large deposit disappeared when someone apparently accidentally deleted it. It was as if it never existed. Luckily, I had a print out of the original statement otherwise they swore blind it never happened!

    Surely, they cant edit entries and there should be some sort of audit trail?[/QUOTE]

    What about if the mistake had been in your favour?

    You wouldn't mind them putting that mistake right would you?
    Early retired - 18th December 2014
    If your dreams don't scare you, they're not big enough
  • matttye
    matttye Posts: 4,828 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Combo Breaker Debt-free and Proud!
    edited 3 April at 1:58PM
    [quote=[Deleted User];60266337]At the time, I didnt know it wasn't mine. I get invoice paid and move total out. I didnt check correct invoice total until later....[/QUOTE]

    Forgive my ignorance, I don't know much about business and how they're paid, but it seems like you should check that you have been paid the correct amount before you withdraw the money. That way if you notice a problem, the funds are still in the account and you can raise it with the bank.

    Is there a reason you can't check before the funds are withdrawn?

    I am basically treating this the same as I would my personal account: if the money in my account didn't seem to add up I would query it with the bank before using it.
    What will your verse be?

    R.I.P Robin Williams.
  • matttye wrote: »
    Forgive my ignorance, I don't know much about business and how they're paid, but it seems like you should check that you have been paid the correct amount before you withdraw the money. That way if you notice a problem, the funds are still in the account and you can raise it with the bank.

    Is there a reason you can't check before the funds are withdrawn?

    I am basically treating this the same as I would my personal account: if the money in my account didn't seem to add up I would query it with the bank before using it.

    I do check at the end of the month. I dont have time to check every single transaction as it comes in.
  • Goldiegirl wrote: »
    What about if the mistake had been in your favour?

    You wouldn't mind them putting that mistake right would you?

    Irrelevant. I dont mind them putting the mistake right. To be honest, an extra 40E or whatever just screws up my accounting anyway.

    What I dont expect is for them to find a mistake, then try to cover it by manually editing entries instead of doing it properly. All they had to do was phone me and advise me and then work out a way to sort the issue out easily.

    As it is, I'm overdrawn because of their mistake....
  • pqrdef
    pqrdef Posts: 4,552 Forumite
    matttye wrote: »
    I'm not sure about the legalities of what the bank did (I'll leave that to somebody else), but it's always a very bad move to withdraw funds you recognise are not yours, as such mistakes are usually corrected in one way or another.
    But of course there are many situations where the sender chooses how much to donate or pay off and the recipient has no way of knowing, because there is no communication apart from the FP itself.

    Then the recipient has no choice but to assume that the statement is correct.
    "It will take, five, 10, 15 years to get back to where we need to be. But it's no longer the individual banks that are in the wrong, it's the banking industry as a whole." - Steven Cooper, head of personal and business banking at Barclays, talking to Martin Lewis
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