Can a Bacs Payment be recalled as bank is refusing to give my son his wages advice needed?

[Deleted User]

I wonder if any one can give my some advice. 
I set up a go Henry account for my son years ago. In the last few years he has had his wages paid in to it and it's gone on to his go Henry card. 

He has Autism so at the time a goHenry card seemed easier and I could keep a eye on him.

On there website and terms and conditions as far as I can see it states you can't have more than £6000 on parent account. It says nothing about any limit on how much you can have on card.

Last month he had £5500 on his card as he has been saving. When his wages came in it went on parent account instead of on to his card. We were told that this is because there is a £6000 limited on the go Henry cards. So we started withdrawing cash and paying it in to my account temporary and slowly moving his wages over to card.

There seems to be no other way to get money out of account apart from withdrawing out cash. Or would have sent most of money digitally via faster payments to another account to make sure there was space.

We wanted to open him a new account with a proper bank as he has now turned 18 but he needs photo ID to open a bank account. He can't get a driver's license due to medical reasons so we have had to apply for a passport. 

Until we get his new passport we can't open another account.

Today he was due to be paid again but no wages have come in, nothing on card or parent account.

Card has £5300 and parent account has £10 so parent account is no where near £6000 limit.

I have contacted Go Henry as my son is very upset they confirmed recieving son's wages this morning but they are now claiming that the limit is now £6000 for parent account and cards all together. If this is so why did his wages still go on my parent account last month 

My daughter has a go Henry card too linked to same parent account which is now useless  as total of both cards and parent account altogether can't be over £6000. 

So £3000 limit per card. 

I have asked if they can't put wages on parent account so can do what did last month, they refused, I asked if they could put it on my daughters go Henry card so she can draw out and give to him but they refused.

I have asked them to return my son's wages to employer or to send them to my bank account but they refused. They are refusing to give my son his money.

Point blank they say he can not have his money, the person I spoke to said money is now lost and that Its my fault and I should have withdrawn more money to make sure there was space. Then they disconnected me.

I find this totally discusting. Can they just steal my son's wages.

Secondly my son was paid by bacs if I contact my son's employer can they have that Bacs returned to them so we can have his wages paid in to my account temporarily. Or can Bacs not be returned

This £6000 limit seems rediculous it's not sending a good message to children, my son now thinks saving is a bad thing and that you should spend money not save.

I will be closing go Henry account asap once we have set up a new account and will get daughter a different account too. 

Any advice much appreciated

Thanks in advance

k3lvc

AFAIK Go Henry was only ever designed as a 'pocket money' based tool rather than for those earning significant sums hence the relatively low level (£6k max) allowed to be held in a 'Parent' account - and as you've found this is a total across however many 'Child' accounts you have

The 'advice' is to reduce the balance to operate the account to agreed terms and then the held funds should clear. Rather than drawaing cash out it the T&C's suggest transactions of up to £500 from Child to Parent account are allowed

Hopefully it can be resolved and he can receive his wages and be able to transition to a more suitable account

jon81uk

I can't see any reason a child would have £6000 so the limit doesn't seem ridiculous to me.

Go Henry is not suitible for the payment of wages into, you should have got a proper bank account set up as soon as he got the job. It is a pre-paid debit card attached to a non-standard bank account NOT a current account.

You might be able to get them to send you some of the money back I have too much money on my GoHenry parent account - how do I retrieve this?
Also appears to be a £10k a year limit too Is there a limit to how much I can load, and my child can spend on their card? (gohenry.com)

You don't need photo ID to open an account if proof of name and address can be provided.
Here is an example of documents Nationwide accept Proving your identity | Nationwide
But doing this in a branch might be helpful.

BACs cannot be recalled as far as I know, but you need to find out exactly what happened. Either the payment got reversed and the employer has it back. More likely Go Henry have the money somewhere, but it does sound like you will have issues getting it.

[Deleted User]

Thanks for your replies,  he has only started working recently before that it was just pocket money. He only works 2 days a week where his dad works. So his dad can keep a eye on him.

It's not unreasonable for a child to have over £6000. Many children from 14 years plus have Saturday or weekend jobs. Surely they are entitled to get paid and it adds up. Should we not be encouraging children to save. 
Also birthday, Christmas and pocket money on top it soon adds up.

Also if you have more than 1 child like I have 2 children with go Henry cards the £6000 limit is apparently in total for both cards and parent account so only £3000 per card. Completely useless 

They do advertise that you can have wages paid in. They state it on there website. 

As said we are going to set up a proper account just can't right now. We have been to many banks to try and set up a account every one has asked for photo ID.
Any way we managed to send some money from his card to his sister's card and withrew some cash from each card. 

 I have paid it in to my account for now and will continue clearing his account and will then close go Henry.

There is no point sending money back to parent account as you can't withdraw it from parent account. They state if you want money from parent account you have to transfer it to one of your children's cards and draw it out in cash.

I don't want anything to do with a account that holds your money hostage. And I pay a monthly fee for this it's a joke.

Thanks again for your replies

jon81uk

In most cases children under 16 aren't working more than a few hours a week, a limit of £6000 is perfectly reasonable to me.
Children (under 16) can only work 12 hours a week, so that would be probably be £100 a week, so £6k is still a years worth!

Once they are 16 and working a weekend job they are no longer a child and a proper current account would make more sense than Go Henry.
I know in your case you wanted the oversight due to your sons autism, but that should have been raised with Go Henry earlier I think, Can adults have a GoHenry card?

ZeroSum

I don't think a child having £6k is ridiculous. I probably had similar level of saving in real terms when I was a child.

However, I can't understand why you'd want to keep that level of savings in an account that pays zero interest. After all you're wanting to teach them about savings!!

Go Henry is more a pocket money thing. Once they build up a couple of hundred, get them to withdraw it & take them to the building society to deposit.

I know it's a bit old fashioned, but with the passbook option, they can't just spend it on a whim.

theoretica

I agree that Go Henry doesn't sound suited to savings - but that is hindsight and not how to recover from this situation.

I just looked through their T&Cs and while they have limits stated they don't say what will happen if you exceed these limits - with the exception of the £10000 annual limit - where they say the deposit will be refused.  So the first - and easiest - thing to do would be to ask the bank that paid the Bacs what happens if it is refused and how long it will take.

How much are the wages?  Because there are also limits on that, and if you only have 5310 total between card and account then if the wage was big enough to take it to 6000 total, the deposit would also be above their limits.

Ergates

Go Henry isn't a bank account, it's a pocket money app linked to a pre-paid debit card.  It's not designed to be used in the manner you've been using it so it's no wonder things have gone a bit wrong.  A child of 14 or older who is working sufficiently to earn £6k should have a proper bank account to put it into, someone who is 18 definately should.  As others have stated - you don't *need* photo ID to open an account.

The good news is that your son's wages aren't lost - BACS payments like that don't just disappear.  The person you spoke to was just confused - probably because working at Go Henry they probably don't see many BACs payments!  Its either knocking around in Go Henry's accounts somewhere, or it will have bounced back to your son's employers.

born_again

£6k sat in a non interest paying account. 
Not very MSE. 

Nice to see you giving some responsibility to you son, but he does fall into the vulnerable bracket. So keeping such large sums in a account such as this or even a current account. Is dangerous. Sadly there are people that could take advantage of him & £6k in a easily available means is not safe. 
Get a savings account for his savings, keeping a balance in his current account around what he might spend a week. I hope you also are looking at either a 3rd party mandate or power of attorney for these accounts.