Refund to Closed Bank Account

davidhorsley

Hello, I'm hoping someone can advise me as to what happens to payments made to a closed bank account.  
I closed a Revolut bank account in June. Then in August Ryanair refunded my cancelled flights to my closed Revolut bank account. I have contacted both parties who have said the money is with the other party. Can anyone advise me as to where the money is likely to be? I believe the payment from Ryanair would have been rejected by Revolut as the account is closed. 
I have received a copy of my closed bank account statement from Revolut up until the end of October which shows no money being received from Ryanair (does show the payment going out). 
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Assuming the money is with Ryanair, can I use the small claims court to claim it back?
Many thanks,
David

penners324

It should have bounced back to the Ryanair account.
Get Ryanair to chase it at their end

jonesMUFCforever

I agree - when a bank account is closed its closed.

davidhorsley

Thank you very much, that is what I thought. Many thanks, David

born_again

jonesMUFCforever said:

I agree - when a bank account is closed its closed.

Not always.
As a closed account refunds can still be received especially if card payments as they are not authorised. As such they go into internal accounts to be reconciled.
I would be asking Ryanair for transaction details (time, date, references etc) to help any tracing at the other end. Internal accounts can receive thousands of payments a day. As you can imagine finding the right one is a PIA

davidhorsley

Thanks born_again. I have tried on several occasions to contact Ryanair but the response is always, we paid you on X date per the email sent on X date. Would you consider going to small claims court to try and retrieve it?

jonesMUFCforever

davidhorsley said:

Thanks born_again. I have tried on several occasions to contact Ryanair but the response is always, we paid you on X date per the email sent on X date. Would you consider going to small claims court to try and retrieve it?

If they could prove payment to your account details and it has not bounced back to them you would lose your court case.
It could be held in a suspense account at the bank but certainly not in your closed account because well it has been closed.

jsmith9

If the BACS payment hit a fully closed account then it would bounce back to Ryanair's bank with code ARUCS (Automated Return of Unapplied Credit Service)

ARUCS (bacs.co.uk)

Ask Ryanair to ask their bank to initiate a BACS trace.

The ARUCS report

If the direct credit system has been unable to apply the payment concerned, funds will be returned to your bank account and you will receive an Automated Return of Unapplied Credit Service (ARUCS) report explaining that the payment has not been made and giving the reason why. This could be because the bank account could not be identified, or some other reason. As with ADDACS reports, it is vital to action an ARUCS report within 3 working days, advising the intended beneficiary that the payment has failed, and (if necessary) obtaining the correct details to ensure payment can be made.

Matt8888

Good luck! I had a total nightmare with this... The company doing the refund said the money had "gone to the bank" (Lloyds) and was now none of their business. They provided a code to prove it, and the bank said the code was irrelevant and proved nothing. The bank said they had not received the money and that I should revert back to the company. This went on and on for months, backwards and forwards. The bank was especially useless. Each time I contacted them I got a different story, put through to different departments, and always with the same result: nothing! In the end I lodged a complaint with the banking ombudsman. The bank said it was now at the highest complaint level, and they would attempt to resolve it, but it would probably take months! Remarkably, a few days later, I had a phone call from the bank, out of the blue. They apologised unreservedly, said it should never have happened, and sent me the money immediately afterwards with quite a generous additional payment for my troubles. They also said they would pay any expenses incurred. To this day, I remain astounded that it took months for the bank to trace a transaction for which I had a precise date, amount and code (I can't remember the name of the code, but I checked, and it was indeed a legit banking system code for such things, but Lloyds seemed never to have heard of it, which hardly inspires confidence). I was sure this sort of thing must have happened before (money being refunded to a closed account), but they carried on as if it was some sort of freak event, the likes of which they had never experienced before! I also think the company that made the refund should have been more helpful. I maintained that until I had received the money, it was not my money, and therefore Lloyds had not lost my money, but money belonging to the company making the refund. However, they refused to contact the bank, and I was left to deal with the whole sorry saga myself.