Sent £14k to the Wrong Account.... So I thought...

paye

Hi,

Yesterday I made a bank Transfer of £14k, all was good until 11 o clock last night when I decided to check the account details of the intended recipient, don't know why.

To my horror after cross referencing the sort code with the letter that was sent to me to make the payment into, the last two digit of the sort code did not match. I immediately rang the bank and told them about this and was told that they will look into this but there was no guarantee I will get the money back:mad::mad:.

As you can imagine I couldn't sleep at all last night because of this and was beating myself up inside.

This morning I rang the company the payment was meant for and explained the situation, and to my amazement they confirmed they have actually received the money :T:T:T:T

It seems like when I made the payment, I entered the correct information from the letter which was sent to me but the letter was outdated as the last two digit of the sort code had indeed changed, it appears the bank automatically updated the sort code without my knowledge whilst I was making the payment. Is this possible or was it just pot luck?

I was reading stories of people losing large sums of money because of this.

What I have learnt from all of this is that in future any payments I make, I will send through a nominal amount and see if it reaches the intended account before committing to the rest of the payment.

You don't understand how relived I am. :A

OopNorfJonny

You had good luck with that, whenever I make a payment I am always terrified of entering the wrong number. I use copy paste wherever I can and check the number at least 3 times including checking it backwards number for number. For larger amounts I send a token amount first and then use the saved details to send the full amount.

eskbanker

paye wrote: »

It seems like when I made the payment, I entered the correct information from the letter which was sent to me but the letter was outdated as the last two digit of the sort code had indeed changed, it appears the bank automatically updated the sort code without my knowledge whilst I was making the payment. Is this possible or was it just pot luck?

Yes, this is an entirely plausible explanation - under ring-fencing arrangements, many sort codes have changed in recent times and it's not unusual for banks to redirect payments seamlessly, even though this manifests itself as if the payment has gone to the wrong place.

There was another similar thread a few weeks ago, although the OP in that one wasn't particularly stable so her posts were largely irrational and ultimately deleted, but it's still possible to make out the gist of it:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5965087/bank-error-but-made-to-believe-it-was-me

redux

By coincidence, I noticed something similar last night, but without the panic.

I set up a new payment transfer, and in the course of checking the nunbers compared it to an earlier one for the same firm (but a different account on their platform, ordinary or ISA).

Same account number, last two digits of sort code different.

The money arrived on the new version. I haven't used the old version for a couple of years. I'd take a guess it would probably still work, but I'd check by asking first.

One of my credit cards now gives different details for bank payment than previously, both sort code and account different, but both were working.

paye

eskbanker wrote: »

Yes, this is an entirely plausible explanation - under ring-fencing arrangements, many sort codes have changed in recent times and it's not unusual for banks to redirect payments seamlessly, even though this manifests itself as if the payment has gone to the wrong place.

There was another similar thread a few weeks ago, although the OP in that one wasn't particularly stable so her posts were largely irrational and ultimately deleted, but it's still possible to make out the gist of it:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5965087/bank-error-but-made-to-believe-it-was-me

The bank should have at least warned me when I was making the payment or told me about the auto sort code update when I phoned up. All along I thought it was my mistake.

Happy days anyway, I can now look forward to my new car tomorrow :beer:

Fingerbobs

OopNorfJonny wrote: »

For larger amounts I send a token amount first and then use the saved details to send the full amount.

Some people say "Oooh, don't do that, it might look like fraud and your account might get frozen!" but I've always done this when sending large amounts and never had a problem.

paye

Fingerbobs wrote: »

Some people say "Oooh, don't do that, it might look like fraud and your account might get frozen!" but I've always done this when sending large amounts and never had a problem.

In future I will most certainly be doing this for all bank transfers I make. I will treat this a big lesson.

GreenQueen

Something similar happened to me when we changed energy supplier. The first payment I made looked as if it had gone to the wrong account, but after a few frantic phone calls to the supplier and my bank, it turns out that they had received the payment. I hadn't thought of it being something like their details being changed and the bank having an automatic correction.

eskbanker

paye wrote: »

The bank should have at least warned me when I was making the payment or told me about the auto sort code update when I phoned up. All along I thought it was my mistake.

I'm not sure exactly how the process works but at the time of you initiating the payment, your bank may be unaware of the redirection being applied by the recipient's bank. Obviously the revised sort code is fed back somehow for it to end up reflected on your online banking and statements, so your bank's customer service staff should have some means of determining what's happened, rather than simply reading you the standard blurb about genuinely misdirected payments....

flo22

If you are paying to a large company like a electricity company or credit card supplier then the bank looks the recipient up the the Biller Service and uses the sort code, account number and reference format defined by the recipient. https://www.bacs.co.uk/Services/Pages/BillerUpdateService.aspx

This is to reduces rejected credits.

swindiff

I always send £1 first when setting up a new payee.