Payday loan paid into old account - now money is missing. HELP!

Hendrix_lennon

Hi everyone.
First of all, thanks for opening this post - I realise there are countless people like me looking for advice.
Basically I've got myself into a bit of a pickle.
I applied through a mobile phone app for a £300 payday loan from wonga (yes I know, but I had my reasons).
Now, I haven't used wonga for some years and the bank account details they had to send the money to were for an account closed in 2013.
Long story short, to date the money hasn't been returned to them and my former bank have no trace of it ever arriving with them.
I've been going back and forward for over a month and feel I'm at the stage now where I don't know what to do next.
Wonga are wanting payments to them to start (to their credit they froze the first month while this was happening).
Can anyone advise anything that can help me with this? The money simply appears to be lost in the ether.
Is this something the Financial Ombudsman could help me with?
Thank you all for reading this and thanks for any help.
:beer:

stuart30

They have the details of the account they paid into...simply tell that Bank the details and let them deal with it.

You can hardly pay back something you never recieved.

Shakin_Steve

Money doesn't disappear into the ether.
The bank that the money was sent to should have bounced it straight back and, as was said in the last reply, they are the ones that Wonga should be in contact with. Wonga sent the money, not you, and you cannot be expected to pay for their mistake.

Hendrix_lennon

Thanks for the replies. You wouldn't believe the amount of times I've been down to the bank and on the phone to Wonga. Neither is prepared to really take responsibility for it. I'm going to keep plugging on but it really seems to be at a stand off just now.

molerat

You start by WRITING a proper paper and ink letter headed FORMAL COMPLAINT to both of them (assuming you are still a customer of the bank, if not it gets complicated), sent with free proof of postage. They then have 8 weeks to sort it to your satisfaction or you then escalate to the FOS.

Lightway12

If your account was closed, the money could not be deposited at all. So it seems that Wonga has made a mistake. They must know which account they have sent the money to, and if this is your old account, you have your back free, since you have not received the deposit.

Best of luck!

YorkshireBoy

Weren't you asked to confirm the sort code and account number at any time during the application? If you were, I'd be wary of terming it their mistake.

GDB2222

Once an account is closed, do banks reuse that account number and give it to someone else?

Hendrix_lennon

GDB2222 wrote: »

Once an account is closed, do banks reuse that account number and give it to someone else?

Yeah - that was something I was told yesterday as well. If that's happened then someone may be sitting with £300 in their account?
The sort code, I'm presuming, would be different though.
I just really, really wish I hadn't done it now, it's causing so much trouble.
Thanks for the advise about the proper written letter.
I'll get onto that today and see if that makes any difference.
This money HAS TO BE somewhere.

Hendrix_lennon

molerat wrote: »

You start by WRITING a proper paper and ink letter headed FORMAL COMPLAINT to both of them (assuming you are still a customer of the bank, if not it gets complicated), sent with free proof of postage. They then have 8 weeks to sort it to your satisfaction or you then escalate to the FOS.

Thanks for that advice.
I'll do this today.
Sadly I am no longer a customer of the bank but it's worth a shot.

GDB2222

Hendrix_lennon wrote: »

Yeah - that was something I was told yesterday as well. If that's happened then someone may be sitting with £300 in their account?
The sort code, I'm presuming, would be different though.
I just really, really wish I hadn't done it now, it's causing so much trouble.
Thanks for the advise about the proper written letter.
I'll get onto that today and see if that makes any difference.
This money HAS TO BE somewhere.

If the money has not gone into a live account, then it probably was bounced back to Wonga. In which case, they never made a loan.

The alternative is it's in a suspense account at your old bank, where they put money they receive but can't allocate correctly. They could easily get thousands of payments a day with incorrect account details, so sorting that out must be a nightmare!

Opening formal complaints with both wonga and the bank will put them under pressure to find out what happened. You don't have to write a letter to do that. Just follow their complaints procedures.