Saint James' Place has lost our money

JBR999

My wife recently instructed Saint James' Place to send a proportion of her investments to our current joint bank account as she needs to access it directly.  However, it appears that someone in their head office has sent it to an old and now defunct bank account of hers. 

My wife has been transferring money from SJP only to our joint bank account, as needed, for well over a year now, so they must now be fully aware of its existence.   Although she may not have informed them of the closure of her old bank account, we feel that they should have checked that it is currently active and usable before sending money there.

She is now struggling to recoup the money which has been misplaced by SJP.  To make matters worse, whilst this money is no longer accessible, she is losing potential profits and feels that these should be compensated for by SJP due to their incorrect handling of the money.

It is now rather important that we can access this money.  What would be the best course of action for us to pursue this?

Dazed_and_C0nfused

JBR999 said:

My wife recently instructed Saint James' Place to send a proportion of her investments to our current joint bank account as she needs to access it directly.  However, it appears that someone in their head office has sent it to an old and now defunct bank account of hers. 

My wife has been transferring money from SJP only to our joint bank account, as needed, for well over a year now, so they must now be fully aware of its existence.   Although she may not have informed them of the closure of her old bank account, we feel that they should have checked that it is currently active and usable before sending money there.

She is now struggling to recoup the money which has been misplaced by SJP.  To make matters worse, whilst this money is no longer accessible, she is losing potential profits and feels that these should be compensated for by SJP due to their incorrect handling of the money.

It is now rather important that we can access this money.  What would be the best course of action for us to pursue this?

If she had been transferring money why was this transaction delay with differently?

dunstonh

My wife has been transferring money from SJP only to our joint bank account, as needed, for well over a year now, so they must now be fully aware of its existence. 

Probably a pull down menu offering two bank accounts.

 Although she may not have informed them of the closure of her old bank account, we feel that they should have checked that it is currently active and usable before sending money there.

It's probably unlikely she informed them that they left it available to be selected.

She is now struggling to recoup the money which has been misplaced by SJP.  To make matters worse, whilst this money is no longer accessible, she is losing potential profits and feels that these should be compensated for by SJP due to their incorrect handling of the money.

There shouldn't be any struggle.  Money paid to the old bank account will be returned to SJP.

You second point is invalid. It would have been withdrawn and not invested if it went to the other account.   So, claiming lost profits is a falsehood.

It is now rather important that we can access this money.  What would be the best course of action for us to pursue this?

You should never leave it to last minute to make withdrawals to cater for things like this.    It will probably take a week and half for it to come back to SJP and then they can send it again.  So, in all, around 2 weeks. 

Where is your cash float/rainy day fund to cover things like this?

xylophone

Your  wife very recently instructed SJP to sell some of her investments and send the proceeds of sale to your joint bank

account?


Your wife has been instructing such sales and remittances for over a year without any problems? 


On this particular occasion, SJP disregarded her instruction concerning the destination account and quite arbitrarily decided to

send  the sale proceeds to a bank account in her sole name  (the details of which they happened to have on file)?


The sole account had  long been closed and SJP now  maintain that the money cannot be traced?


If the above is the case, then your wife should be making a formal complaint to SJP requiring them to make good the money and

compensate her  for any financial loss (interest for example) and for distress and inconvenience.

tacpot12

I fear you are expecting too much of any provider, even a very expensive one such as SJP. When they first pay to a bank account they will complete a Confirmation of Payee check to ensure that they are sending money to the correct bank account, but I can't imagine that any provider does a new CoP check for each payment. It's up to the client to advise what bank account they want to be paid to, and to tell the provider to stop using a particular account. That said, it indicates that SJP's systems are not very good. Few providers will allow you to have more than one bank account registered with them, mainly because their systems don't allow it.

You can expect SJP to do the leg work to recover the funds from the bank they sent it to. As for compensation, I doubt you will convince them you are entitled to anything, given your responsibility to tell them not to use a defunct account. 

masonic

So to summarise, you closed your linked account, didn't inform SJP, and your latest withdrawal was therefore sent to your closed account? Only you'd added the new account and had been using this for transactions you initiated?

Presumably you didn't switch the closed account to your new one? If you did, then you should expect your old bank to forward the money to the new account. Otherwise, it will be returned at some point, but will then need to be identified and matched to your SJP account.

I echo Dazed's question, why instruct SJP rather than do it yourself this time? It seems an assumption was made about the nominated account on file, or was the sort code and account number confirmed as part of the instruction?

I don't think a provider can be held responsible for a customer closing an account that has been nominated to receive funds by the customer. They couldn't have known you'd closed it until being told or having a payment bounce. Providers do not routinely send a £1 test payment and check it has been received before sending the rest.

If you had informed them when you closed the account, you specified the new account details, or they sent the money to a different account entirely, then you'd have grounds for complaint.

xylophone

The OP stated

My wife recently instructed Saint James' Place to send a proportion of her investments to our current joint bank account 

He doesn't say that his wife's closed account was a linked account.

The point of a specific linked account (at least the ones I have) is that it is only possible to send money to that account,

This cannot have been the case if  (up to this last payment)  the wife's instructions  to remit money to the joint account had been 

 accepted and actioned?

masonic

xylophone said:

The OP stated

My wife recently instructed Saint James' Place to send a proportion of her investments to our current joint bank account 

He doesn't say that his wife's closed account was a linked account.

The point of a specific linked account (at least the ones I have) is that it is only possible to send money to that account,

This cannot have been the case if  (up to this last payment)  the wife's instructions  to remit money to the joint account had been 

 accepted and actioned?

What would you call an account pre-registered to receive withdrawals if not a linked account? I know of investment providers which allow multiple of these (as well as savings providers). I've no idea if SJP is among them. It is also possible that different accounts can be set up for different purposes, and a premium service like SJP could well have additional flexibility to suit their clients' bespoke needs.

OP also states "she may not have informed them of the closure of her old bank account", which suggests acknowledgement that it was an account they would have had on file. It would be rather odd to do this for an account you never told them about, and even stranger if money was misdirected to such an account. If, as you suggest, only one linked account was permitted, then the old account would have been replaced with the new one - again, very unlikely given the facts.

The root cause of the discrepancy seems to be the instruction to SJP this time as opposed to her making transfers on other occasions. Hence the earlier questions about the different approach used this time. Did she confirm the sort code and account number to use in one set of circumstances but not the other?

xylophone

if not a linked account?

I said "specific" linked account.

For example, I have one savings account where only one linked current account is possible.

I have another where more than one can be pre linked BUT for each transfer the account to be used must be specified.

The OP's wife appears to have instructed that the funds should br remitted to the joint account.

Ergates

JBR999 said:

Although she may not have informed them of the closure of her old bank account, we feel that they should have checked that it is currently active and usable before sending money there.

This isn't something a 3rd party can do.

masonic

xylophone said:

if not a linked account?

I said "specific" linked account.

For example, I have one savings account where only one linked current account is possible.

I have another where more than one can be pre linked BUT for each transfer the account to be used must be specified.

The OP's wife appears to have instructed that the funds should br remitted to the joint account.

My comment quoted there was in response to yours saying: "He doesn't say that his wife's closed account was a linked account."

I am happy to wait for clarification from the OP if you are, but I don't think I am wrong to use the terminology "linked account", which you called out. Most likely the default option was presented and this turned out not to be the account to the OP's wife intended. Question then becomes should SJP reasonably have known the default option was not the correct one based on the instruction given.

The devil is in the detail, and so much is still unclear from the description provided in the OP.