misdirected money to a none account

coffeeman16

Hello,
I was to get an amount from a matured investment, but the payer has reported that I gave the wrong bank account details and the amount has been misdirected.
The wrong bank account does not exist the digits do not connect with an account, The money should bounce back to the payer, has anybody had experience of this and how long for it to sort out.
Thanks.

grumbler

I don't know how long, but if it really was you who gave the wrong details, consider yourself being extremely lucky that the account doesn't exist. Otherwise you would have possibly never seen your money again.
In light of this, it doesn't really matter if takes one week or two now.

Armorica

How do you know an account doesn't exist?

Money is normally returned how it was sent. If it was sent by Bacs then it would take three days to get there, three days to bounce back, and then however long for the payer to make the payment to the details you give them next? If it was CHAPS or FPS it should be quicker.

Best is of course getting details right in the first place!

http://www.paymentscouncil.org.uk/current_projects/misdirected_payments/the_code_of_best_practice/-/page/2874/ may help

InsideInsurance

Is the sort code valid?

Certainly with some banks if payment is received with an erroneous account number then its put into the branches suspense account and not immediately bounced back. I have to admit that I dont know how long they sit on it but I know these accounts have large sums of monies and a lot of transactions going through them - though not all are just erroneous payments.

The sender's bank needs to contact the bank the sort code relates to and they will sort it out between themselves but it will take a week or so

agrinnall

There are two factors in play here, neither of which we currently know the answer.

How are the account details wrong? Was the sortcode valid or invalid? Was the account number a correct number for that sortcode, but an account that does not exist, or was it an invalid number?

How was the payment made? If it was by Faster Payments then if either the sortcode or the account number was invalid then the payment would have been rejected and never left the originator's account. If it was by BACS Direct Credit then it could well be as InsideInsurance has described. I'm not sure about what validation CHAPS does but I don't think it's as sophisticated as FPS.

Armorica

agrinnall wrote: »

There are two factors in play here, neither of which we currently know the answer.

How are the account details wrong? Was the sortcode valid or invalid? Was the account number a correct number for that sortcode, but an account that does not exist, or was it an invalid number?

How was the payment made? If it was by Faster Payments then if either the sortcode or the account number was invalid then the payment would have been rejected and never left the originator's account. If it was by BACS Direct Credit then it could well be as InsideInsurance has described. I'm not sure about what validation CHAPS does but I don't think it's as sophisticated as FPS.

CHAPS doesn't get authorisation at account level from the receiving bank. But a CHAPS payment would usually be returned by CHAPS, so it's quicker than a Bacs payment being returned by Bacs

pmduk

agrinnall wrote: »

There are two factors in play here, neither of which we currently know the answer.

How are the account details wrong? Was the sortcode valid or invalid? Was the account number a correct number for that sortcode, but an account that does not exist, or was it an invalid number?

I think the OP also needs to check that it was indeed they who made the error. If not, and the payer made the mistake then the OP would be entitled to ask for the payment to be made again without waiting for the funds to be returned.