Wages to wrong bank account

Wyndham

How old is your son? If he's under 18 then I understand why you are getting involved. If he's over 18, you can, of course, advise, but he should be the one talking to both the employer and the bank. In fact, if he's over 18 and the employer is talking to you about his information, that's a breach of GDPR. And even if he is 16 or 17 it's quite a grey area, to be honest...

In your first post you said "I saw the error and told his work what they needed to do (file a cpr between bank accounts)." That may not have gone down well with payroll!

molerat

Have you checked the sort code and account combination is valid ?

https://www.sortcodes.co.uk/

TELLIT01

I'm aware that a name check is made when a private individual tries to transfer money to a different account, but I'm not sure that it does with business account.  The overhead it would create for companies would be potentially massive.

SiliconChip

TELLIT01 said:

I'm aware that a name check is made when a private individual tries to transfer money to a different account, but I'm not sure that it does with business account.  The overhead it would create for companies would be potentially massive.

While I haven't been involved in payment processing since before COP came in I'd agree that it's unlikely to be done for payments from businesses, particulary so for Direct Credits (which is quite likely to be the case for salaries) as there's no interaction with the receiving bank at the time the transactions are created.

Intoodeep

I do a small Payroll (50) the Bank (Barclays) always compare correct names with Accounts/ Sort Code

penners324

Has the payroll department actually requested a return of funds for that payment?

stressistheword

penners324 said:

Has the payroll department actually requested a return of funds for that payment?

They say they have but the money hasn’t been returned. Not sure where to go from here? It’s been over seven weeks now ☹️

lr1277

stressistheword said:

penners324 said:

Has the payroll department actually requested a return of funds for that payment?

They say they have but the money hasn’t been returned. Not sure where to go from here? It’s been over seven weeks now ☹️

As it has been more than a month, has a 2nd wage payment been made? If so, has this been received in the correct current account?

As per @molerat's suggestion, was a check made on the sort code account number combination the funds were sent to? If it is a real account someone has the money and so far they have not returned the money.

The following is a thought experiment and I have no idea if it would work. Never seen this suggested on MSE before and there might be good reasons for that.

Would it be worth your son contacting HMRC to say the wage was never received? In which case he should get the tax paid back? Otherwise he would be paying tax on money never received. Admittedly his fault, but if his employer has made best efforts to recover the money and the recipient has not played ball.... But the total wage and taxes paid will be shown on his P60 on the assumption that your son earned and therefore received the after tax amounts.

The next part is highly speculative, but would it be worth telling HMRC the account number and sort code the wages were sent to? In which case that recipient has income which has not been taxed. If HMRC were interested, they could find the owner of the account and send them a tax bill for the money received. Having thought further, paying tax on free money might still be worth it for the recipient.

I might contact HMRC and see what they say about getting a tax refund on monies never received.

JennyDavis

Contact your bank to explain the situation. They might be able to provide additional advice or initiate an investigation if the funds were incorrectly deposited into another account.

molerat

lr1277 said:

stressistheword said:

penners324 said:

Has the payroll department actually requested a return of funds for that payment?

They say they have but the money hasn’t been returned. Not sure where to go from here? It’s been over seven weeks now ☹️

As it has been more than a month, has a 2nd wage payment been made? If so, has this been received in the correct current account?

As per @molerat's suggestion, was a check made on the sort code account number combination the funds were sent to? If it is a real account someone has the money and so far they have not returned the money.

The following is a thought experiment and I have no idea if it would work. Never seen this suggested on MSE before and there might be good reasons for that.

Would it be worth your son contacting HMRC to say the wage was never received? In which case he should get the tax paid back? Otherwise he would be paying tax on money never received. Admittedly his fault, but if his employer has made best efforts to recover the money and the recipient has not played ball.... But the total wage and taxes paid will be shown on his P60 on the assumption that your son earned and therefore received the after tax amounts.

The next part is highly speculative, but would it be worth telling HMRC the account number and sort code the wages were sent to? In which case that recipient has income which has not been taxed. If HMRC were interested, they could find the owner of the account and send them a tax bill for the money received. Having thought further, paying tax on free money might still be worth it for the recipient.

I might contact HMRC and see what they say about getting a tax refund on monies never received.

The employer paid wages as contractually obliged.  It was paid to the account specified by the employee. It is of no concern to HMRC that the employee did not receive the money in their own account.  The actual recipient of the money has no contractual relationship with the payer, tax wise it is a gift.  They do have a legal obligation to return the money but noone has a legal obligation to provide details of who that recipient is unless ordered by the courts or a police warrant in the course of investigations which isn't going to happen.