Balance Transfer disaster

MrCbomb

Hi all

I am so mega stressed I’m hoping for reassurance....

So I made a balance transfer last month for the amount of £5k from one card to a 0% interest card.
After a couple of days the new card showed the balance had gone through but checking the old card it was still outstanding. I waited another couple of days still no change, so i contacted the new card only to be told that there were 2 digits that didn’t match the old card.
They asked for the correct card details and said they would look into it within 10 days.

I am losing my mind I have no clue what the process is or what happens next or whether i’ll ever see that money again i defo cannot afford to pay £10,000.

I know i’m an idiot please don’t bombard me with what is obvious i just really need to understand what happens now....
I hope this makes sense this is my 1st ever post.

fewcloudy

MrCbomb wrote: »

Hi all

I know i’m an idiot please don’t bombard me with what is obvious i just really need to understand what happens now....

Hello MrCbomb,

Well, from what you have said, I would guess that they looked into it but for some reason they did not get back to you in 10 days.

You say you did the transfer last month (December 2019?).

That's quite a long time ago now, so if I were you I would contact them again. I think it would be better to hear what happens next from your credit card company, rather than anyone on here.

I doubt you will have to pay £10000.

fc

Terry_Towelling

Talk to both card companies involved. If this really has happened, what were the two digits that didn't match? What does your old card provider say about the payment it received on the account number that wasn't yours.

Curiously, how did the new card provider know that two digits were wrong (and which ones they were) BEFORE you gave them the correct card number?

blue.peter

I agree with the advice offered by fewcloudy.

Talk to both companies and see what they have to say. Since the receiving credit card is showing the correct balance (i.e., the result that you want), it sounds as if the problem is likely to be with the transferring credit card provider. That's therefore probably the best place to start. Make sure that they're aware that the receiving card is showing that the transfer has gone through, as well as the fact that theirs shows that it hasn't.

If that doesn't get you a satisfactory outcome, you should raise it as a complaint. Make sure that they understand what outcome you want - i.e., to see the transferred balance on the receiving card and no balance on the transferring one. You'll also want to be sure that you don't get charged interest that shouldn't have been. And you might point out that this situation is causing you stress.

Although the receiving card provider appears not to be at fault, it's conceivable that they might be partly to blame. It's therefore worth complaining to them as well.

If your complaints to the card providers don't get a satisfactory result, take the complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service. Note, though, that the companies have eight weeks to respond before you can go to FOS.

A_Lert

Not directly on topic, but you're really unlucky if a typo in a credit card number produced another valid card number. The system is done so that any one digit wrong, or two numbers swapped in most cases, won't produce a valid number. (And indeed the error would be detected before you can even initiate the balance transfer).

MrCbomb

So from the 16 digit number instead of one of the 4 sets of numbers being 1234 it was read back to me as 1256. This was confirmed only when I rung the cc company 4 days after the transfer was done.
I contacted and asked them to read back to me the number where the transfer had been sent to. I explained that was not the correct number the agent disappeared for 5 mins came back asked for what the number should have been and said they’ll be in touch in 10 working days
When a transfer is made as you may know when done theres is no confirmation email or letter to recheck what you inputted. I got to tbh i still doubt it was me that got it so very wrong but i cannot prove it.

I have spoken to the company that i was paying the balance off and they really are not interested there advice was to make sure the min payment was met on time.

I do not know if the money has hit another account or stuck somewhere but it hasn’t bounced back.

I just don’t know whats supposed to happen now, i sort of think this can’t be the 1st time this has happened but I can’t find much info at all

born_again

Happens quite often when people get numbers mixed up or wrong.

What happens is the card that the funds were sent too, contact the old card and recall the amount with the wrong number. Then it gets sent again.
The amount will be sat in a holding account at your old CC as they will not be able to assign it to a account.

Who are the card providers and how long since the error was highlighted?

Terry_Towelling

Replacing a the numbers 1234 with 1256 would make the card number fail the Mod 10 check - unless the final digit of the card number was also changed. I find it hard to believe that a card issuer would have effected a Balance Transfer unless the number transposition hit another valid card number (which they sometimes do). On this occasion they don't hit another valid card number.

So, ignoring the fact that I suspect we are being led up the garden path here, if the transfer was effected, the funds must be sitting in a suspense account with your old card provider and will not have been applied to someone else's valid account.

There's nothing we can physically do to help you; you have to sort it with your card providers - shouldn't be an issue.

MrCbomb

Thanks for the advice.
Terry I’m not trying to lead anybody anywhere.
If i’m appearing to be vague it’s because I don’t want to reveal too much personal information but at the same trying to give you all an accurate account of whats happened so you can offer the best possible advice.
They are both big high street bank Credit Cards so I’m expecting a proper investigation to find the missing funds.
So as it stands I have an outstanding balance of £5k on my original card and new balance and cleared of £5k on my new card.
The example of the original card number was 1234 5678 9012 3456 but said they had 1234 5678 9023 3456...

CRANKY40

So you've paid £5k on a card which has been sent but hasn't reached the other card. All banks have a department that deals with unallocated funds. It will sit there until someone deals with the report that's generated and either returns the funds or finds the correct account number to allocate them to.

It's been a long time since I worked for a bank and I can't for the life of me remember the name of this department. It's usually at head office though. You need to find the number for head office and ask for the department that deals with unallocated payments.

My friend once put a whole days unallocated payments into one persons bank account and it took us ages to pull them all back out.... It's the same department that deals with the kind of thing like a bulk wage payment being received from an employer with no bank account details. In that instance you'd ring the employer and ask how the payment should be allocated. You need to ring them and tell them how your payment should be allocated once they find it. It will be sat on a report somewhere.

MrCbomb

Sorry folks but I am still clutching at straws here. This is where I am.

 

I have spoken to CC company with the Original balance, they are just not interested, they have said they have no holding accounts and they cannot look into it for me it as it has to all be done via the CC company transferring the balance. So I am still paying them there monthly payments for the outstanding balance

 

The CC company that I did the balance transfer with just won’t tell me what they are doing to resolve the situation, they just keep quoting scripted responses which is they have a timeline to work to of 6-8 weeks to deal with the complaint (complaint raised via Resolver on 30th Jan).

I have made 8 phone calls asking for updates and even been to branch and sat with a CS agent for over an hour whilst she tried to extract info about what was happening, but even she ended up saying they are working to a timeframe. Again I have now started to pay the monthly payments for the outstanding balance including the £5k so I am effectively paying for it twice.

 

I am also concerned that if and when the money is recalled that the £0 fee for Balance transfers and 0% promotional offer will have expired. Only I say this as the agent mentioned the money would be recalled and would have to complete the transfer again.

 

Any advice what my next move should be?