Help please!!! transferred £300 into the wrong account.

matttye

dalesrider wrote: »

Are you sure.

Have you looked in your local telephone directory lately?

Never mind Smith or Jones.... There are many regional names of which there can be hundreds of per sort code.

Add in, with the onset of internet banking. Many Sort codes do not relate to local branches.

Note that I said same account name and not the same name. The middle name or initial usually makes an appearance as well.

Even if a sort code doesn't relate to a specific branch, my point still stands that it would be far less likely for all three pieces of information to match up.

Uxb

The problem over name checking is that you are all thinking of simple account name like "Mr P Smith" and the like.
Once you get to ones like "Dr AJ and Mrs PM Smith-Jones Household a/c" it all gets rather more complex. Now if you are checking name match how much of that account name is the bank going to allow a sender to get wrong/omit/mixup before they reject the payment as not matching?
One local club/society I'm treasurer for is so convuluted that everyone uses the acronym for it made up of the first letters of each word on things like cheques.

stclair

OP you may want to share your experience completing this:


http://www.paymentscouncil.org.uk/current_projects/payments_to_the_wrong_account/

John1993_2

matttye wrote: »

It's a much larger leap that an account name would match a given account number and sort code, than it is simply that an account number would match a sort code.

Which means that a vast number of "correct" transfer requests would be rejected, as the name was entered as "Doctor Smith", "Dr. Smith", or "Dr. N. Smith" when the account name was "Dr N. Smith".

Which is why you are in a small minority calling for this change; a change which is not necessary, as the current system works just fine, as long as you can rouse yourself to put in the effort to check the numbers that you are typing.

People do understand your point, they disagree with it. Stating it again and again isn't going to change anyone's mind. I've read what you say, and I disagree. I don't want the system to nanny me to the extent that you request. I actively prefer the current system.

stclair

John1993 wrote: »

Which means that a vast number of "correct" transfer requests would be rejected, as the name was entered as "Doctor Smith", "Dr. Smith", or "Dr. N. Smith" when the account name was "Dr N. Smith".

Which is why you are in a small minority caling for this change; a change which is not necessary, as the current system works just fine, as long as you can rouse yourself to put in the effort to check the numbers that you are typing.

People do understand your point, they disaree with it. Stating it again and again isn't going to change anyone's mind. I've read what you say, and I disagree. I don't want the system to nanny me to the extent that you request. I actively prefer the current system.

Is abit like the postman they just look at the address not the name of the recipient.

Crystallady

It would be nearly impossible to check the name as well as the sort code and account number, bearing in mind that theses details are checked by machines not people and there must be many thousands every day.
The possible variations of the name of a joint account could be enormous even without spelling mistakes - do you add courtesy titles or first names or just the surname(s)? Would you accept a payment to Tony Stevens where the account held is Anthony Stephens? etc etc

matttye

John1993 wrote: »

Which means that a vast number of "correct" transfer requests would be rejected, as the name was entered as "Doctor Smith", "Dr. Smith", or "Dr. N. Smith" when the account name was "Dr N. Smith".

Which is why you are in a small minority calling for this change; a change which is not necessary, as the current system works just fine, as long as you can rouse yourself to put in the effort to check the numbers that you are typing.

People do understand your point, they disagree with it. Stating it again and again isn't going to change anyone's mind. I've read what you say, and I disagree. I don't want the system to nanny me to the extent that you request. I actively prefer the current system.

If you'd read my point you'd see I'm not asking banks to take the account name into account. I think it's a very bad idea for reasons you've given. I'm not "calling for this change."

Once again you're mistaking me for someone else

I'm simply saying that banks should state quite categorically that the account name is NOT used when sending a payment, on the payment page itself. If they do this, then a person armed with all of the information has noone but themselves to blame if they mistype some of the info.

JuicyJesus

stclair wrote: »

OP you may want to share your experience completing this:


http://www.paymentscouncil.org.uk/current_projects/payments_to_the_wrong_account/

Oh, no, don't show BlindLeadingTheBlind that:

Whilst the vast majority of payments are made without issue, in rare cases problems arise if a payer enters the wrong payment information, resulting in a payment being made to the wrong account.

The Payments Council have clearly not taken note of the banking conspiracy to act on customer instructions. The swines!

Archi_Bald

JuicyJesus wrote: »

The Payments Council have clearly not taken note of the banking conspiracy to act on customer instructions. The swines!

With a name of BlindLeadingTheBlind it's easy to "see" that it is clearly all one big, nasty, smelly conspiracy by the establishment against poor, defenseless consumers. Let's not get reality and facts get in the way of a bit of banker bashing.

NB. to take the wind out of the bashers' sails: I have never worked for a bank, or in the financial industry.

cdotr

Just been reading through some old ombudsman news publications and this caught my eye from April/May 2012

102/7
complaint about bank not checking that account details match before processing an online transfer
Mr P used his internet banking service to transfer £1,000 to his daughter, who was away at university. A week later, the money had not reached his daughter’s account. When Mr P queried this with his bank, he discovered that the money had gone into the account of an unknown third party. The bank told him that one of the digits of the account number he had entered had been wrong.

The bank was able to recall the money and transfer it to Mr P’s daughter. However, Mr P complained to the bank, saying that it should have checked that the name and account number matched, and that the fact it had not done so had caused him significant inconvenience.

complaint not upheld
We explained to Mr P that the bank was not required to check that the name and the account number matched before processing his online transfer. Having looked carefully at the evidence, we were satisfied that the bank had displayed a clear on-screen message at the start of the online payment process, explaining that only a sort code and an account number would be used to process a payment – and not an account name. For this reason, we did not uphold the complaint.

Few differences to the situations as whoever this bank is displayed the message saying that only account number and s/c would be used and actually got the money back (and they guy still complained?), but still highlights the bank didn't have to check the name