What's an ARN number?

liney

I was expecting a credit to my bank account from a company and it hasn't arrived. They have given me an ARN number for the bank to track the transaction, and after numerous emails i visited the bank to try and establish where my money is.

The customer service advisor said she had no idea what an ARN number was, and it was impossible to track the transaction from their end, so my query has been passed to the Recovery Centre, but claimed to not have an email or telephone number for this department. After much huffing and puffing i now have the address, but as this has been going on for 3 weeks now i am unhappy.

The company sending the cash say they will not trace the transaction unless Lloyds TSB give me a letter confirming they have not recieved the deposit. Lloyds refuse to give me a letter as they say they cant be sure one of the other transactions isnt the one i am referring to. (There are other deposits from the same company in my account)

I guess what i really need is some advice form someone who works in a bank. Who is BSing me; the bank, or the company?

LisaLisa_3

Hi Liney,
The ARN is an 'Acquirer's Reference Number'. The customer service girl probably had no idea what you were talking about, although these are used quite a lot, especially when payments are sent by recrediting a card. If you can get hold of the department at your bank which deals with chargebacks or disputed payments, they should be familiar with ARNs and be aware of how to track your payment using one, and confirm exactly which entry in your account is the payment in question.

The company sending the money will probably get charged to do a full trace on the payment, whereas getting the ARN is usually free.

I don't work for a bank, but I did work for a long time in the Customer Service department of a company who made lots of recredits to cards, and this was a frequent query!

Hope this helps,
Lisa

liney

So the bank can search on the ARN number and determine where the cash is?

jonesMUFCforever

liney wrote: »

So the bank can search on the ARN number and determine where the cash is?

Is this money that is due a refund on a card?
If so, you need to speak to the card services of that bank as a bank branch will have no idea of what you are on about.
If it is not a refund on a card but a BACS payment that has not arrived then the correct procedure is for the sender to contact their bank to conduct a search.

liney

It's a refund. Apparently i need to speak to their recovery centre.... who they wont give me a phone number or e-mail address for, but have forwarded my query to.

LisaLisa_3

Liney,
If it's a refund to your card, then the best option would be, as ejones said, to call Card Services - there's probably a number on the back of your statement under who to contact if you are disputing a transaction. In my experience, it's the chargeback and disputed payments department (this may be what customer services meant by recovery department) who deal with this - it seems that the systems they use can reconcile an ARN to a specific transaction, whereas the normal bank systems cannot.
I'd also add that when I used to deal with customer queries relating to this, we never had anyone come back after speaking to the chargeback department to say that the payment still hadn't been located, so I'd say once you get hold of the correct people, you should get this resolved pretty quickly.

Lisa

liney

Card Services say they only deal with transactions appearing on an account which are disputed, and have no facility to search on an ARN number. Arrrraaaggghhhhh

Fozzy_boy

liney wrote: »

Card Services say they only deal with transactions appearing on an account which are disputed, and have no facility to search on an ARN number. Arrrraaaggghhhhh

I am dealing with an almost exact same issue, my situation is:

Merchant refunded me an amount via a credit/debit card to an account that has been closed for years! The bank insists that the credit would have been rejected, merchant insists that they did not receive the rejection. Merchant provided me an ARN# that the bank says that they can't use.

Ugghh...now the merchant is sending me the transaction record that they sent it. Then of course it's back to the bank for the next round of finger pointing!

BTW did I mention that the credit was issued 4 months ago!

sadenia

I am interested in the response to LINEY's latest post above. This is my situation:
I use my credit card to play poker. Regularly I pay 20 pounds and it gets taken, REALLY EASILY! and SUCCESSFULLY I notice.
I won 400 dollars which I withdrew using the SAME British CARD.
My credit card company say this $400 is not on the statements. I have spoken to the CHARGEBACK and DISPUTES team, they say its not their issue as I am not 'disputing a purchase'. The poker company sends me the ARN number.
I am told by the CHARGEBACK man on the phone that they cant search the number because there is NO DEBITED AMOUNT from this company.
After long, drawn, out back and forths. I expressed that there are MANY and MORE than $400 dollars worth of 20 GBpounds paid out to this company in my statements.
FINALLY the lad on the customer services said he would take the ARN number (which he'd not heard of and asked me to 'google'!!?!?)
I found this forum and asked him to trace the number using the info here.
I have to wait until tomorrow to hear back.
I am finding this all incredible and scary. Its the first time I have withdrawn funds I have won, and here I am in the middle of two respectable companies and both are saying they can do nothing more.
FULL TILT POKER , who sent the ARN
and ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND BUSINESS MASTERCARD who have not seen the payment since it was sent to me in MAY 2010
Why is this happening in this internet savvy age?
If I get a response tomorrow I will let this forum know.

jonesMUFCforever

This thread is 3 years old! Start your own.

sadenia

Opps did I do something wrong there... sorry for that if so...I am looking for help only.

I will try and re post as a 'new post'

I have received no call so far and been advised today that I should call back on monday to speak to the customer service person