Customer has overpaid significantly

Redditch

Hiya.

I have presented customer with an invoice for 1214£ last night via email. He has received it ( my software tells me when invoice is opened) and paid. He was slightly inebriated when I was leaving his house and I believe that was the reason why he has overpaid 10 times. Amount I received was 12140£.
I've notified him immediately and of course I will return excess to him once he supplies me with his bank details ( both via email and text message for additional confirmation), but I have to explain that situation to my bank?

PRAISETHESUN

Just be a bit careful here - get your bank to sort out the refund rather than you initiating a transfer. I've read of similar scams where this happens only for the original payment to be recalled, leaving you out of pocket.

If it is a legitimate business invoice then there shouldn't be any issue with your bank - the customer after all has made the error, and it is up to them to arrange the correct payment.

Ben8282

Why do you write your figures so strangely. NOBODY writes 1214£ ; everybody writes £1214.

This is extremely odd and unless the customer is a large company it is strange that he had so much money sitting in his account.
As has been said above, be very careful. DO NOT simply return the money. Go to your bank with a copy of the invoice and copies of all written correspondence (e-mails, texts etc). Explain what has happened. Get the bank to return the funds and alert them to your serious concerns about potential fraud.

Novice_investor101

Potential fraud & potential money laundering, both spring to my slightly cynical mind

shortcrust

Ben8282 wrote: »

Why do you write your figures so strangely. NOBODY writes 1214£ ; everybody writes £1214.

This is extremely odd and unless the customer is a large company it is strange that he had so much money sitting in his account.
As has been said above, be very careful. DO NOT simply return the money. Go to your bank with a copy of the invoice and copies of all written correspondence (e-mails, texts etc). Explain what has happened. Get the bank to return the funds and alert them to your serious concerns about potential fraud.

Lots of countries put the currency symbol after the amount. I guess the OP is from overseas. Old habits and all that.

Ergates

Redditch wrote: »

Hiya.

I have presented customer with an invoice for 1214£ last night via email. He has received it ( my software tells me when invoice is opened) and paid. He was slightly inebriated when I was leaving his house and I believe that was the reason why he has overpaid 10 times. Amount I received was 12140£.
I've notified him immediately and of course I will return excess to him once he supplies me with his bank details ( both via email and text message for additional confirmation), but I have to explain that situation to my bank?

DANGER! Will Robinson. DANGER!

Adding another voice to the "get your bank to sort it out" crowd. If you send the money back yourself, the chances of something going wrong (accidentally, or deliberately) are way too high.

The original payment could be recalled.
The customers could also have paid you from a hijacked account, then give you details of a different account to pay back into.

It is *probably* all just an innocent mistake and it would *probably* be all fine. But given the amounts of money involved, do you really want to take the risk?

Redditch

Hello.

Thank you all.

I've contacted bank and they will contact customer's bank and if everything adds up they will return full amount into his account.
Customer is genuine, I have been doing work for him for last three years, so I doubt it was done deliberately to launder money.

It's a shame because there are money owed to me for work done but also invoice is paid in full, like catch 22.


Yes, I'm a foreigner and I type currency symbol after numbers.

robatwork

Ben8282 wrote: »

Why do you write your figures so strangely. NOBODY writes 1214£ ; everybody writes £1214.

This is extremely odd and unless the customer is a large company it is strange that he had so much money sitting in his account.

So much wrong in one post.

Lots of Europeans put the currency symbol after the number, and they also tend to put a comma instead of a dot in 12345,44€ so don't let that UPSET you.

If you'd looked at the huge clue in the post - the lack of articles - you could surmise the OP is possibly Slavic or from another culture who use cases and not articles.

Finally I'll bet hundreds of people on this forum could pay £12,410 from one of their personal bank accounts - this isn't a large company amount.