What does it mean when a payment has been pending for more than 2 weeks into a bank account?

Sunshine_of_your_Dyf

Hi all,

My wife received her normal salary at the end of April, but on the same day had an amount of £1,699 going straight into her savings account. She doesn’t know where it’s from and her work has informed her that this isn’t an additional stipend from them. It’s odd also that it’s gone directly into her savings account, which I assume has a different sort code and account number to her basic account.

For the last two weeks, it’s been marked as a pending transaction (it was paid into her savings account on 28th April). Does this mean that the bank haven’t cleared this yet? It’s all very confusing - there’s no indication where this money came from, other than it’s from ‘Bank Giro credit’. We've not yet called the bank, but soon will do, but just wanted to gauge some ideas on what this could be and why the bank have put a hold on this transaction?

Any ideas?

Thanks!

Flugelhorn

if she doesn't know where it is from and it is paid in to a different account to where the salary normally goes then it sounds like someone has put the wrong numbers on a transfer - you really need to speak to the bank 

Sunshine_of_your_Dyf

Flugelhorn said:

if she doesn't know where it is from and it is paid in to a different account to where the salary normally goes then it sounds like someone has put the wrong numbers on a transfer - you really need to speak to the bank 

This is what I thought. In that case, will the bank just cancel the transaction and return the money to the original sender then? After 2 weeks, you'd have thought that the sender and the bank would have resolved this by now, or at least the sender would have raised a query straight away.

Johnjdc

This doesn't answer your question directly, but every three months someone sends me about £90. The payment reference is wholly uniformative other than that it's a trust based in the Netherlands. I have queried with my bank twice but I just get a lot of "we can't tell you anything useful about this payment because of GDPR" so I've dropped the matter and am just trying to remember not to spend it, for when someone comes knocking.

cwep2

90% chance it's a genuine mistake, someone keyed in wrong numbers and flagged it, hence it's pending for now.

10% chance it's fraud - not yours but come from an account that has been involved in fraud - again it's probably a mistake, but someone emptying an account they managed to get login details for illegally and sending it to dozens of accounts in smaller amounts is more likely to make a mistake inputting the numbers!

Don't spend it, you probably can't anyway, assume it's a mistake and in the very small chance the bank can't figure it out or find the rightful owner you may have a nice surprise, but the chances of this are pretty small. You may however gain some interest on it whilst it's "resting in your account" (to quote Father Ted).

You could call your bank, or not, they probably won't tell you very much at this stage and whilst I don't know whether this would affect it, I feel that if you tell them you don't recognise the payment and it's not yours the (very small) chance that you end up getting the money becomes even smaller. Maybe if it does clear or a month goes by I'd call the bank to ask what's going on assuming the payment is still showing in the account.

Swipe

If it's pending it's not in your account yet so I'd just ignore it until it clears.

woolly_wombat

How did your wife get on with phoning the bank?

jaypers

Pending transactions don’t generally hang around for more than a few days. This sounds odd. 

allegro120

Sunshine_of_your_Dyf said:

Hi all,

My wife received her normal salary at the end of April, but on the same day had an amount of £1,699 going straight into her savings account. She doesn’t know where it’s from and her work has informed her that this isn’t an additional stipend from them. It’s odd also that it’s gone directly into her savings account, which I assume has a different sort code and account number to her basic account.

For the last two weeks, it’s been marked as a pending transaction (it was paid into her savings account on 28th April). Does this mean that the bank haven’t cleared this yet? It’s all very confusing - there’s no indication where this money came from, other than it’s from ‘Bank Giro credit’. We've not yet called the bank, but soon will do, but just wanted to gauge some ideas on what this could be and why the bank have put a hold on this transaction?

Any ideas?

Thanks!

Bank Giro credit rings the bell.  Some years ago friend of mine has been scammed.  Don't want to bore people with the whole story, but tell you the end of it - next day she received a phone call telling that this money were sent by mistake and kindly asked her to return it to an account number they gave her.  She did and lost £900.  She called the bank (HSBS) and they said it is a common scam with use of Giro Credit cheques and they can't do anything about it.  

Flugelhorn

allegro120 said:

Sunshine_of_your_Dyf said:

Hi all,

My wife received her normal salary at the end of April, but on the same day had an amount of £1,699 going straight into her savings account. She doesn’t know where it’s from and her work has informed her that this isn’t an additional stipend from them. It’s odd also that it’s gone directly into her savings account, which I assume has a different sort code and account number to her basic account.

For the last two weeks, it’s been marked as a pending transaction (it was paid into her savings account on 28th April). Does this mean that the bank haven’t cleared this yet? It’s all very confusing - there’s no indication where this money came from, other than it’s from ‘Bank Giro credit’. We've not yet called the bank, but soon will do, but just wanted to gauge some ideas on what this could be and why the bank have put a hold on this transaction?

Any ideas?

Thanks!

Bank Giro credit rings the bell.  Some years ago friend of mine has been scammed.  Don't want to bore people with the whole story, but tell you the end of it - next day she received a phone call telling that this money were sent by mistake and kindly asked her to return it to an account number they gave her.  She did and lost £900.  She called the bank (HSBS) and they said it is a common scam with use of Giro Credit cheques and they can't do anything about it.  

so best not to return it unless the bank are involved (and she is sure it is her bank!)

Eco_Miser

allegro120 said:

Sunshine_of_your_Dyf said:

Hi all,

My wife received her normal salary at the end of April, but on the same day had an amount of £1,699 going straight into her savings account. She doesn’t know where it’s from and her work has informed her that this isn’t an additional stipend from them. It’s odd also that it’s gone directly into her savings account, which I assume has a different sort code and account number to her basic account.

For the last two weeks, it’s been marked as a pending transaction (it was paid into her savings account on 28th April). Does this mean that the bank haven’t cleared this yet? It’s all very confusing - there’s no indication where this money came from, other than it’s from ‘Bank Giro credit’. We've not yet called the bank, but soon will do, but just wanted to gauge some ideas on what this could be and why the bank have put a hold on this transaction?

Any ideas?

Thanks!

Bank Giro credit rings the bell.  Some years ago friend of mine has been scammed.  Don't want to bore people with the whole story, but tell you the end of it - next day she received a phone call telling that this money were sent by mistake and kindly asked her to return it to an account number they gave her.  She did and lost £900.  She called the bank (HSBS) and they said it is a common scam with use of Giro Credit cheques and they can't do anything about it.  

Bank Giro Credit is usually a BACS inbound payment.

It's nothing to do with the former National Giro, originally Post Office, then Alliance & Leicester, now Santander, if it's still around, whose cheques were once the standard way of paying benefits.