Bank says I owe them £500

joew5421

Hi,

• I closed a bank account a couple of months ago, and the balance was all paid etc. I've just got a letter from them saying that I owe £500 because they've found a mistake that was made in September last year (9 months ago).
  
• Apparently there was a mistake where the bank sent £500 to one of my other bank accounts (a different company). It shouldn't have happened so they credited the money back to my account from their own funds. They're now saying they've only just realised that they never got the £500 back from the other bank account.

Does anyone know whether there is a time limit to banks chasing people on this sort of thing? Shouldn't they have raised this before they agreed to close the account? I thought everything on that account was now done and dusted!

I'm not trying to dodge any money I owe, but it was a long time ago and don't remember it coming up at the time. Annoyingly I can't simply log in and check my statements because I've moved on from all the accounts involved. I'm a little annoyed that they've just dropped this on me!

pmhtuk

I think that a 'debt' can be chased legally for up to 6/7 years.

stclair

They have six years to chase you for the debt.

Voyager2002

Let me guess which bank this was: Santander?

pqrdef

Have we established that this was a loan and not a gift? The "borrower" doesn't seem to have entered into any agreement.

The bank was obliged to restore the payment that was incorrectly debited. What they did with the money is their problem. If they sent it into a black hole, tough.

The bank would seem to be in the same position as a customer who sends money to the wrong account and can't get it back.

Welll it wasn't the customers who invented this useless payment system, it was the banks. Perhaps if they suffer from its inadequacies, they'll fix it.

chanz4

pqrdef wrote: »

Have we established that this was a loan and not a gift? The "borrower" doesn't seem to have entered into any agreement.

The bank was obliged to restore the payment that was incorrectly debited. What they did with the money is their problem. If they sent it into a black hole, tough.

The bank would seem to be in the same position as a customer who sends money to the wrong account and can't get it back.

Welll it wasn't the customers who invented this useless payment system, it was the banks. Perhaps if they suffer from its inadequacies, they'll fix it.

Doesnt work like that

chili1496

as a good will gesture tell them to swivel

JuicyJesus

chanz4 wrote: »

Doesnt work like that

Yes it does. If the bank made the payment entirely through their error, the customer who was wrongly debited should not have to stand the loss.

EDIT: I was wrong, this does not apply to the OP's scenario.

Debt_Free_Chick

joew5421 wrote: »

Hi,

• I closed a bank account a couple of months ago, and the balance was all paid etc. I've just got a letter from them saying that I owe £500 because they've found a mistake that was made in September last year (9 months ago).
• Apparently there was a mistake where the bank sent £500 to one of my other bank accounts (a different company). It shouldn't have happened so they credited the money back to my account from their own funds. They're now saying they've only just realised that they never got the £500 back from the other bank account.

Presumably, the £500 was credited to your other account though ...?


Yes, it's annoying, but difficult to argue that you shouldn't have to pay it back, if you've effectively got the money in the other account.

JuicyJesus

Debt_Free_Chick wrote: »

[/LIST]Presumably, the £500 was credited to your other account though ...?


Yes, it's annoying, but difficult to argue that you shouldn't have to pay it back, if you've effectively got the money in the other account.

Ah, wait, no, I didn't read that bit properly.

Yes, if the money went to the OP's account they should pay it back. There's no reason they should have it twice.

joew5421

Thought that was the case. I'd have expected them to have all this in order before they agreed to close the account though.

I need to sit down and look through all the old statements before I'm sure the money stayed in my other account. It may well have. Hopefully they'll be reasonable and accept payment in instalments - can't just hand £500 over!

Thanks for all the comments.