CHIP Savings - beware!

NYCCP

My husband and I hold savings accounts with CHIP. We also each have CHIP Prize Savings accounts. My husband recently won 2 x £10 prizes - woo hoo! BUT CHIP took one of the £10 prize money back a few days later, without telling my husband; no email, no telephone call. It was only when my husband emailed them that they said oh yes, apologies, there was a technical issue and prizes were inadvertently issued twice! Can they do this? Good job it wasn't me that won £3,000 as I would have already spent it before they took it back!! Would be interested to hear your comments please. Thank you Forumites 

Mark_d

Organisations occasionally make mistakes and then try to recover the money.  With the money in your husband's Chip account it was easy for them to recover.

They are not taking back a gift/prize.  They are simply rectifying a mistake.  And it sounds like they did this fairly promptly.

masonic

Yes, "bank error in your favour" only works in Monopoly. If it was you, and you were credited 2 x £10,000 (there is no £3,000 prize), then spent it, then they'd need to arrange a repayment plan with you. Though it should be obvious as there is only one grand prize, the rest are £10 prizes.

flaneurs_lobster

Do Chip notify you if you win? I've had £100 in mine forever and can't remember the last time I checked.

Pretty sure that cash (or for that matter anything else) that comes into your possession in error can be retrieved without consent (all other things being equal, it's not OK to break into next door because your Amazon parcel got misdelivered).

Whether or not it's worth annoying your customers by ram-raiding their accounts is a PR call. If I were Chip I would have left the tenner with you and sent you an email apologising for my mistake and asking you to accept the erroneous credit gratis. You would then big up Chip to all your mates (and mebbe on MSE) for being so magnanimous and it's a big win all round.

The reason they haven't done this is that they have presumably double-paid the big prizes too, and that's a serious wedge that they can't write off.
 

NYCCP

flaneurs_lobster said:

Do Chip notify you if you win? I've had £100 in mine forever and can't remember the last time I checked.

Pretty sure that cash (or for that matter anything else) that comes into your possession in error can be retrieved without consent (all other things being equal, it's not OK to break into next door because your Amazon parcel got misdelivered).

Whether or not it's worth annoying your customers by ram-raiding their accounts is a PR call. If I were Chip I would have left the tenner with you and sent you an email apologising for my mistake and asking you to accept the erroneous credit gratis. You would then big up Chip to all your mates (and mebbe on MSE) for being so magnanimous and it's a big win all round.

The reason they haven't done this is that they have presumably double-paid the big prizes too, and that's a serious wedge that they can't write off.
 

Thank you, my husband said it would have been better for them to do it that way. 

BTW, he hasn't been notified of the wins, he checks the account each month. 

Thanks for your advice, much appreciated! 👍

jaypers

Had it been the other way around and debited you twice, I’m sure you would have expected them to re-credit you fairly promptly.