Refund processed to closed account

User87568

Hi, I’m sorry, I have googled this for days and just can’t seem to find a definite answer! I’m hoping somebody can help...
A refund was processed on Sunday evening for £200 but after a few days of it not appearing in the bank I checked and it appeared to have gone to my Barclays account that closed last year.
The refunding company have said its processed there end and given me an ARN and have gone into the branch where the advisor filled in a form to do some kind of search in dormancy accounts. Obviously this is not a quick process but the advisor assured me he would email them to chase it up.
Does anybody have any experience of this? I’ve read it should have bounced back as not an active account, if so how long does that usually take?
I desperately needed that money! Thank you

[Deleted User]

Did you close or switch the account?

badger09

What sort of refund?

If you switched your account did you use CASS (Current Account Switching Service)?

Ben8282

What sort of refund? What company processes refunds on Sunday evening?
How can you not know where it has gone?
Either it went to a debit card or it went to a sort code and account number. The sender will tell you which if you don't know.
If the account was closed it would not be dormant so don't understand the search of dormant accounts.
What exactly did you google for days? Must have been very tiring for you.

Terry_Towelling

If it's a debit card refund, your old bank will possibly try to fob you off and tell you it will get bounced back - but that should never happen. Contact your old bank's debit card team and give them the debit card number and ARN. They can then search for it and advise you where it is and how it can be processed to you.

If you switched accounts through CASS (as mentioned by others) the refund should (I think) be automatically forwarded to the new account.

And a word of advice; don't waste time googling stuff for 'days' when you could just call up the bank and ask them.

User87568

Yes Ben, obviously I have been searching non stop for 48-72hrs? Totally what I meant?! !!!!!! clearly I mean there is a lot of conflicting information online, it has happened to others so it’s hardly a rare occurrence I just thought I’d ask the question myself, on a site where I though someone may know the solution? Well there’s always one I suppose.
Anyway, it’s perfectly reasonable for me to not know where it went. It was refunded to a closed account but not bounced back to the original company that issued the refund? I do not pretend to understand the banking system I’m only going with what the bank told me! They didn’t try and make me feel an idiot like some so presumably they have had this happen before.
I didn’t realise there was a difference in refunds, it’s simply a refund to a debit card linked to an account that is now closed.
I’ve read about suspense accounts that are checked for discrepancies within the banking system so perhaps this is what the advisor meant?

User87568

I was being a tad dramatic with that whole days thing I work 12 hr days so hardly time to google too much! I just meant I felt I’d exhausted google search!
I have phoned the bank but they couldn’t advise on timescale etc I just wondered if anyone had experienced the same!
Thanks though Terri that was really helpful. And no I didn’t switch I just closed down the account last year as I wasn’t using it.

born_again

Well if the OP has a ARN then its a Card Payment.

Pretty easy to trace via the Visa/Mastercard systems. It will be sat in a internal account waiting to be passed to where it needs to be.
So a closed account should not take long to find the payment, might be better ring Barclays and talking to their banking team who will deal with these accounts. As it is possible that they have bounced it back. Due to a closed account.

User87568

Thanks born again I thought ARN was only cards payment so couldn’t understand why others were asking! Anyway thank you that’s the kind of thing I needed to know.

Terry_Towelling

Front line staff are probably not best placed to advise on this sort of thing. Back-office teams (such as disputes departments) are usually better placed to find these things. It shouldn't be any more than a five minute job to take the card number and ARN and locate when it came into the system and where it was posted - it's something that happens regularly and so should have a process in place to handle it. The ARN itself contains the date the refund was prepared for entry into what is known as 'Interchange' (usually Visa or MasterCard systems) and it will usually hit the card issuer system the following day. If the bank has automatically bounced the refund back then they are complete 'buffoons' - that should never happen with a refund - ever.

The problem is, how good are the connections between the front line and the back-office.

Ben8282

Assuming that the OP knows what card they used last year for the transaction that was refunded last Sunday evening, it surely would be a simple matter to contact the bank and say 'I had a refund to my debit card 4XXX XXXX XXXX XXXX which was the debit card for my account XX-XX-XX XXXXXXXX which I closed/switched (OP does not reply to this important question) last year. Can you tell me what has happened to the refund? I have the ARN if that helps.