Money sent to wrong account

colsten

Beckydev said:

colsten said:

Beckydev said:

Our santander account won't let us send anything unless the details match but this guy said nothing came up on his online banking to say it didn't match. 

All banks let you send money to any account, whether the Confirmation Of Payee (COP) finds a match or not. You can ignore if there isn't a match. There will be a few warning messages, but you can click them all away.

It would be a great coincidence if an account number with just 2 digits difference existed within the same sort code, and an even greater coincidence if that account was held in the name of you and your husband. 

Unless your husband does indeed have and account with the other number, it is totally not true when the client says "nothing came up on his online banking to say it didn't match". Santander will, by default, carry out a COP check on payments to other Santander accounts.

Are you sure that both, the client and your husband are telling you the truth?

Hubby is telling the truth, I have heard the phone conversation on speaker. I'm surprised he hasn't thrown up tonight 🤦‍♀️
Client, I don't have a reason not to believe him 🤔 we have just bought his house, known his wife for a few years. The confirmation bit, maybe a fib but payment I don't doubt.
Hoping tomorrow he makes a call to the bank, we will make a call also to the bank. Let's hope after such a crap year we have some sort of luck in getting some, if not all back 🤞

Someone is lying then.

But it sounds as if the money went into a Santander suspense account and it will eventually get returned to the client. So he can then pay the correct account number, assuming it's given to him ;-)

Beckydev

Peter999_2 said:

Hi,

Account numbers do follow an algorithm where if numbers could be mis-read they aren't valid.   For example, if my account number was 81238722 then the account number 81238122 would be invalid as you could possibly misread a 7 for a 1.

If you go to the following site - https://www.sortcodes.co.uk/ and put the sort code and account number of where the money has been sent it will tell you if it is a valid account or not.    If it is not valid the money should be returned to your client.

Hope this helps.

Morning, 
It's a valid account 😬

whitesmith

I don't have a Santander account but recently sent up a payee on my Lloyds account to someone with the same sort code i.e. in the same branch as me - it asked for confirmation of payee and checked that the payees name was correct

jonesMUFCforever

If its a valid account at least Santander to Santander - you have a chance to get the money back - they should be able to undo the transaction quickly - as long as the account it went into is not overdrawn.

eskbanker

jonesMUFCforever said:

If its a valid account at least Santander to Santander - you have a chance to get the money back - they should be able to undo the transaction quickly - as long as the account it went into is not overdrawn.

Surely the fact that it's gone to another Santander account makes no difference?  Retrieval of the money is dependent on the recipient not disputing its return, regardless of which bank they're with, i.e. the bank can't just undo this unilaterally....

jonesMUFCforever

eskbanker said:

jonesMUFCforever said:

If its a valid account at least Santander to Santander - you have a chance to get the money back - they should be able to undo the transaction quickly - as long as the account it went into is not overdrawn.

Surely the fact that it's gone to another Santander account makes no difference?  Retrieval of the money is dependent on the recipient not disputing its return, regardless of which bank they're with, i.e. the bank can't just undo this unilaterally....

I believe that they can. Surely same bank transactions are quicker to deal with than one bank to another where you would have to contact the other bank with details of the error and wait for a reply. In the case discussed here Santander can see account A has been debited and account B credited.
I don't know of the exact mechanics of inter bank transactions (whether they actually use the faster payments system or internal transfers) but where an obvious error has happened they can correct it.

eskbanker

jonesMUFCforever said:

eskbanker said:

jonesMUFCforever said:

If its a valid account at least Santander to Santander - you have a chance to get the money back - they should be able to undo the transaction quickly - as long as the account it went into is not overdrawn.

Surely the fact that it's gone to another Santander account makes no difference?  Retrieval of the money is dependent on the recipient not disputing its return, regardless of which bank they're with, i.e. the bank can't just undo this unilaterally....

I believe that they can. Surely same bank transactions are quicker to deal with than one bank to another where you would have to contact the other bank with details of the error and wait for a reply. In the case discussed here Santander can see account A has been debited and account B credited.
I don't know of the exact mechanics of inter bank transactions (whether they actually use the faster payments system or internal transfers) but where an obvious error has happened they can correct it.

Yes, Santander can see account B credited but can't just help themselves to it from that account on the say-so of the holder of account A - the misdirected payments code requires that they seek B's consent first (a process that can take up to 20 working days):

To balance the rights of all customers, whether they have sent or received a payment, the receiving customer will be contacted by their bank and given the opportunity to dispute the return of the funds in all cases.

Beckydev

We rang the bank, client rang the bank. 
Both of us got told they will ring the account holder if number is valid. Email if email address is valid and send a letter to the address they hold. 
It can take upto 20 days to get back but if the account holder is overdrawn, spends it or doesn't make contact then it's gone.

Thanks for the replies 

whitesmith

Not quite gone - you always have the option of the small claims court.

eskbanker

whitesmith said:

Not quite gone - you always have the option of the small claims court.

Assuming you're referring to court action against the recipient of the money, the sticking point there is that neither OP nor the sender know who that is, and their address (needed for such processes), and the bank won't divulge that information....