Electronic transfer with wrong account number

sweetlil

I recently sent three payments from my paypal account to my Nationwide account and the funds went into another persons account - the original error was a wrong digit in the account number

- the bank wrote to the customer finally and they have not responded the phone and email address for the customer is not correct/not connected and the customer -

how do I get my money back or how can I find out who the customer is to take it to civil court..this seems to be a huge grey area and no one wants to help - can anyone advise,

I am currently waiting on the banks second letter to the customer but don't know what to do if they won't return the money.
They have spent it the bank will tell me there are no funds to return at this stage.

I know I have to raise it with the Ombudsman and have started this process pending the banks final response...

I should have add that it was £1100.00 and it is killing me with stress - I am losing sleep worrying about how I am going to give my kids Christmas and put shoes on their feet in the new year? I am just devastated and I cannot get any help - please can someone help - where do I go - how can I recover my money?

opinions4u

You might not recover the money. I'm sorry if that's not what you want to hear, but you need to prepare for the worst.

In future please do a test transaction for £1 and check the money is received before sending larger amounts.

The FOS are going to be very restricted. You gave an instruction and it has been carried out accurately. So I'm not sure that you have any justifiable complaint.

ihatemyhouse

why did paypal let you set up an account that you didn't verify, as normally they send an amount or take an amount and you have to tell them what it is, did you do this

EarthBoy

The Ombudsman won't be interested because the bank haven't done anything wrong. YOU told the bank to pay the money to that account, so you, and you alone are to blame. Yes, you made a mistake, but it's your mistake, not the bank's mistake. If payments could be reversed just because a customer claims to have paid the wrong account then nobody could ever be sure of getting payment from anyone.

bengal-stripe

sweetlil wrote: »

I recently sent three payments from my paypal account to my Nationwide account and the funds went into another persons account - the original error was a wrong digit in the account number

Here is the other side of the coin: someone who has received a payment (not for him) and has little intention to return it.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4828450

innovate

You can take the account holder to the small claims court if you find out who they are. The bank will be hiding behind data protection though so you will need the help of a legal professional. In any case, there is next to no chance that you will get your money back by Xmas.

But, as has already been asked, how do you manage to make several payments to a non-verified bank account? My Paypal account does not allow me to make any payments at all until I have verified my account.

Also, picking a valid sort code /account number combination by making a 1 digit mistake is basically impossible since account numbers aren't allocated consecutively. Picking a valid combination by picking more than one wrong digit is even more unlikely to happen.

May be review your statements, may be the payments did arrive in your account and you didn't notice them?

Wilkins

bengal-stripe wrote: »

Here is the other side of the coin: someone who has received a payment (not for him) and has little intention to return it.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4828450

Just about to post that link. It may give OP some hope. What is needed in these situations is a waiver of confidentiality / data protection rules to allow banks to release names & addresses to aggrieved parties.

innovate

Wilkins wrote: »

. What is needed in these situations is a waiver of confidentiality / data protection rules to allow banks to release names & addresses to aggrieved parties.

On the face of it, yes, there is a problem. However, we also need to look at the facts, such as:

1. you cannot make a faster payment to a non-existing sort code / account number combination
2. it is virtually impossible to pick somebody else's account by simply getting one or several digits wrong
3. when you make a faster payment, there will be a record of the payee in your transaction list. The payee will also be in your payees list. So you know who the recipient is, you don't need the bank to tell you
4. n the case of Paypal, you need to have the bank account verified before you can use it. Verification entails that you confirm two micro payments Paypal make to the account you entered. The only way to find out what the amounts are is to look at the account. So it is either your own account, or the account of someone you know

I am not saying it is impossible to send money to a wrong account by mistake - it has indeed happened to myself. However, it is nigh on completely impossible that you do not know who the recipient is. Thus the issue is nowhere near as big as it might appear on the face of it.

nidO

innovate wrote: »

[*]n the case of Paypal, you need to have the bank account verified before you can use it. Verification entails that you confirm two micro payments Paypal make to the account you entered. The only way to find out what the amounts are is to look at the account. So it is either your own account, or the account of someone you know

This information mentioned by several people is incorrect. You only have to confirm a bank account with PayPal in order to send money from your bank to PayPal, however an unconfirmed account can be perfectly well used to withdraw money from PayPal.
In fact, when following the withdrawal process you are given the option to add a new bank account and are asked for an acct number/sort code, PayPal then accepts these details and sets the new unconfirmed account as the target for that withdrawal without even prompting/questioning whether you would like to confirm the account first.

robatwork

I hope Alex from the Help Needed thread is reading....

grumbler

innovate wrote: »

...it is virtually impossible to pick somebody else's account by simply getting one or several digits wrong

I think you seriously underestimate the probability.

when you make a faster payment, there will be a record of the payee in your transaction list. The payee will also be in your payees list. So you know who the recipient is, you don't need the bank to tell you

You know only the sort code and account number. You can't take legal actions against numbers if you entered one incorrectly.