Random Bank Giro Credit

TR10118

Hello, my girlfriend has just had a random bank Giro credit of £500.00 exactly directly into her account. We aren’t going to spend the money but I’ve read online already that the bank can’t do anything about it - does anyone have any advice?

Also whilst I am here...we have recently become home owners in the past 3 weeks (moved in 18/05) and we have started to get random letters to our address with random names on such as James McKenna, Lewis mckenna etc, I can feel a card inside like a debit card or something similar. We never opened them just give them back to the post man. Any advise on that?

Cheers

DCFC79

TR10118 wrote: »

Hello, my girlfriend has just had a random bank Giro credit of £500.00 exactly directly into her account. We aren’t going to spend the money but I’ve read online already that the bank can’t do anything about it - does anyone have any advice?

Also whilst I am here...we have recently become home owners in the past 3 weeks (moved in 18/05) and we have started to get random letters to our address with random names on such as James McKenna, Lewis mckenna etc, I can feel a card inside like a debit card or something similar. We never opened them just give them back to the post man. Any advise on that?

Cheers

The bank can ask for it back if the person who paid it in has realised theres been an error.

Re the second, any chance the surnames are linked to the previous owners ?
Write on the envelope return to sender and pop it back into the post box, you could open them and ring the bank concerned.

TR10118

Ok thanks for that and the previous owners had the second name ‘Hall’ and lived here for 35 years so no connection at all unfortunately

jonesMUFCforever

Who did you arrange the mortgage with?

Did they have an offer perhaps with a gift on completion?

TR10118

Yes! Haha thank you, absolute light bulb moment there. It’s our nationwide cash back! :rotfl: thanks haha!

DCFC79

TR10118 wrote: »

Ok thanks for that and the previous owners had the second name !!!8216;Hall!!!8217; and lived here for 35 years so no connection at all unfortunately

Maybe its a neighbour then, accidently put the wrong house number on.

Id still return them to the bank.

With fraud on the rise Im not sure if Id go to the extra length and cut the card up or if possible take the unopened post into the relevant bank.

Have the names been for the same person same address ?

alanq

TR10118 wrote: »

Yes! Haha thank you, absolute light bulb moment there. It!!!8217;s our nationwide cash back! :rotfl: thanks haha!

Glad that you discovered that it was your own money!

However...

TR10118 wrote: »

... I!!!8217;ve read online already that the bank can!!!8217;t do anything about it - does anyone have any advice?

4 years ago I received an unexpected credit to my Nationwide account with a name that was not mine as a reference. I visited a branch and there I was told that the payment came from a Lloyds branch in an area with which I had no connection. I instructed Nationwide to return the payment to whence it had come and that is what it did.


Perhaps data protection rules being tighter these days might make Nationwide less inclined to give me the clues that it did then but I assume that would still be possible for a receiving bank to return a payment that the payee reports as erroneous.

EachPenny

TR10118 wrote: »

We aren’t going to spend the money but I’ve read online already that the bank can’t do anything about it - does anyone have any advice?

Yes - don't believe everything you read on the internet.

The other thing to bear in mind about keeping someone else's money is that payments that suddenly appear in your account may be part of an attempted fraud, or might come from a source you don't want to be associated with.

If the bank's fraud/anti-money laundering systems spot the payment and you haven't contacted them to report the payment then suspicion will turn on you.... as many threads on this forum will testify to. Claiming innocence is difficult when you've spent the money, or moved it to a different account.

It pays to be honest when it comes to dealing with banks.