Balance transfer misdirected to another account £4k - please help

eskbanker

sarahern said:

I was getting nowhere with customer service on both sides about what had happened and where the money had gone. It was being worded very confusingly. I therefore pursued complaints to try and get to the root of the issue. Both responded. Some failings were admitted by sainsburys but they said they had attempted to recall the money and barclaycard told them the money had been withdrawn by the unintended recipient. No one has ever attempted to contact this individual. Both complaints not upheld so i was advised to contact ombudsman. 

No resolution hence complaint sent. When posting please you put yourself into my shoes! A £4k debt that i am being hit with and no one is tracing for me! 

I'm not sure if that post was intended as a response to mine asking about what went into your complaint, but if it was, I think you may have taken it the wrong way!  I wasn't criticising you for complaining but just highlighting the need to be structured and focused when pursuing formal complaints with institutions and FOS, i.e. these should be reasonably specific about how their actions differed from what they should have been doing, according to Ts & Cs, regulations, industry practice, etc.

The advice to contact the ombudsman was presumably just the boilerplate FCA-approved wording accompanying any institution's final response, i.e. we won't take this any further but if you wish to, then you have the right to escalate to FOS?

born_again

sarahern said:

I have just tweeted them to ask! They just keep saying ‘we cannot assist whilst ombudsman investigates’ even though ive told them the ombudsman has no jurisdiction to claw the money back. It feels like every single organisation are unable to help. 

So just to be clear on the FOS side.
You have raised a complaint with Sainsburys, they have rejected, taken more than 8 weeks or sent a deadlock letter, so you have now raised this with FOS.
Is that correct?

If it is, while FOS can not claw the money back. They can adjudicate and if error is found with Sainsburys make them pay you back.

sarahern

Sorry just to be clear this saga started in january so we are 8 months on. That is correct both banks have sent final response letters. As i had no resolution i went to the ombudsman end of May. In terms of any typo error this is what sainsburys allege. On one occasion they told me 1 digit was wrong and on another they said 4. I queried if the transaction had been intercepted / virus / scam etc.
I am going to locate ts and cs and peruse. Struggling to find a copy of the code of practice aswell.

p3ncilsharpener

sarahern said:

Sorry just to be clear this saga started in january so we are 8 months on. That is correct both banks have sent final response letters. As i had no resolution i went to the ombudsman end of May. In terms of any typo error this is what sainsburys allege. On one occasion they told me 1 digit was wrong and on another they said 4. I queried if the transaction had been intercepted / virus / scam etc.
I am going to locate ts and cs and peruse. Struggling to find a copy of the code of practice aswell.

If there was it would be on your end. If their systems had been hacked it'd be all over the news as they wouldn't just take £4k from one customer they'd be helping themselves to millions.

sarahern

Ts and cs say for balance transfer ‘for balance transfers we need to approve your request’ what is meant by approve? ‘Once approved… well use the faster payment schemen if it is available’
furthermore if i told sainsburys the amount to BT was £4048 why would they approve it twice? Taking it to in excess of £8k?

sarahern

Also if they use the faster payment scheme for balance transfers then isnt this subject to Confirmatiom of Payee check?

eskbanker

sarahern said:

Ts and cs say for balance transfer ‘for balance transfers we need to approve your request’ what is meant by approve?

Presumably checking that you have enough credit available and that you've specified a valid destination?

sarahern said:

‘Once approved… well use the faster payment schemen if it is available’

This perhaps would bring the misdirected payments process into play, but its documentation refers to it initially applying only to directly-connected participants, with others (such as Sainsbury's) to follow 'in early 2016'!

sarahern said:

furthermore if i told sainsburys the amount to BT was £4048 why would they approve it twice? Taking it to in excess of £8k?

They presumably saw it as two separate requests, to two different destinations?  Was your credit limit high enough to satisfy both?

sarahern said:

Also if they use the faster payment scheme for balance transfers then isnt this subject to Confirmatiom of Payee check?

Not inherently, CoP has only been adopted by some banks so far, and isn't a necessary prerequisite for Faster Payments.

p3ncilsharpener

sarahern said:

Ts and cs say for balance transfer ‘for balance transfers we need to approve your request’ what is meant by approve? ‘Once approved… well use the faster payment schemen if it is available’
furthermore if i told sainsburys the amount to BT was £4048 why would they approve it twice? Taking it to in excess of £8k?

Someone looks at it and clicks a button.

They approved it twice because you requested it twice.

sarahern said:

Also if they use the faster payment scheme for balance transfers then isnt this subject to Confirmatiom of Payee check?

Strongly suspect this isn't going to be in play for this sort of transfer.  Even if it was, they're under no obligation to follow it.  CoP is there to protect consumers from scams.

pbartlett

I am new to this thread, but if I understand correctly the OP applied for a balance transfer with Sainsburys, and whilst typing in their Barclaycard account did a typo and the money went to someone else's credit card instead.

The thing that jumps out at me is this is highly unlikely as credit card numbers are checksummed and a typo would result in an invalid card. Thus it seems likely that the OP did input the correct card details. 

sarahern

Ok thanks can i check is misdirected payments process different to confirmation of payee. Does anyone have the code? Its not accesible on the internet strangely enough!