Sent money to wrong recipient. Refusing to return

scaton

Hi. First time poster with a question about a misdirected payment.

Last January I intended to send £1,000 to my daughter's Child Trust Fund. The following January when I went to transfer another payment to her, I discovered to my embarrassment that I had actually sent the payment to a local gymnastics club my daughter attended 18 months earlier by mistake.

The payees had similar names and both used my daughter's name and DOB as reference, which explains my brain freeze. 100% my error though.

Despite the payment having my name and my daughters name, the gymnastics club made no effort to contact me to ask why I had sent this money. For an easy life I gave them the benefit of the doubt but obviously requested this was returned asap.

I eventually got a promise of this, although bizarrely with a request that I apologise for my error.

Two months on I've had several missed payment dates, so sent a letter advising seven days before I would be forced to go legal. He has replied saying that this letter stopped him laying the payment and that I have no legal grounds.

This is contrary to my understanding and I wondered if anyone knew for sure the legal position before I traipse off to the Small Claims Court.

Thanks

agrinnall

The man is a fool, I would expect you to win and the gymnastics club will have to pay your small claim fees as well as return the mistaken payment.

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/banking/2016/01/sent-money-to-the-wrong-bank-account-now-it-should-be-easier-to-get-it-back

jonesMUFCforever

......Before going down the court route - if it was a faster payment ask your bank to recall the payment -(not sure if you are out of time).
This will request a claim for the money back and the gym club will have 20 working days to respond.
If they do play ball and you get the money back --great - it will not have cost you anything - if they don't, use the correspondence to show the court that you have been reasonable in your dealings with them.

Good luck.

Andypandyboy

Yes, you do have legal grounds. In just the same way as if you received a payment in error you would be expected to return it on request.

Send him a strongly worded letter.

scaton

Thanks all. I appreciate the feedback. The bank were unable to recall the funds.

grumbler

Small Claims Court it is then...

HappyMJ

I vote for a money claim too. Make sure you send a "LETTER BEFORE ACTION" before starting the claim. Give them at least 7 days to pay and then start a claim online.

colsten

grumbler wrote: »

Small Claims Court it is then...

That looks a bit out of date. Money Claim Online is where I'd go.

grumbler

I always thought they were synonyms. And the link in the article is exactly the same as yours.

System

Have people missed the fact that it took more than a year before the OP noticed?

I'm guessing so based on the response of doing a chargeback

grumbler

If people missed this fact, they wouldn't suggest SCC.
Chargeback is for card payments, not for transfers.