First Direct Joint to First Direct Sole - salary now missing

Si_Haworth

As per title really.
Closed my joint account earlier part of this month following divorce and opened up a sole account with First Direct. Was informed that everything would be transferred over and any credits or debits sent to my old joint account would be automatically transferred to my new sole account. 

Pay day today and no sign of my salary although typically all direct debits have come out and pushed me into an unarranged overdraft. 

Checked with work and they have used my old joint account bank details. First direct are saying that there is no trace of payment being made to that account. Where do I stand here? Is it likely to just arrive at some point asap or does this need manual intervention on someone's part?

Rich1976

it could it could be that the payment was rejected and sent back to your employer’s bank account. I would check with them first to see if that is what has happened. If not get back in touch with FD as it could be in a suspense account.

when changing accounts I would always let employers know the new bank details and not rely on the banking system.

Si_Haworth

Rich1976 said:

it could it could be that the payment was rejected and sent back to your employer’s bank account. I would check with them first to see if that is what has happened. If not get back in touch with FD as it could be in a suspense account.

when changing accounts I would always let employers know the new bank details and not rely on the banking system.

Would first direct be able to see if they rejected it? 

Rich1976

Si_Haworth said:

Rich1976 said:

it could it could be that the payment was rejected and sent back to your employer’s bank account. I would check with them first to see if that is what has happened. If not get back in touch with FD as it could be in a suspense account.

when changing accounts I would always let employers know the new bank details and not rely on the banking system.

Would first direct be able to see if they rejected it? 

Maybe not the frontline customer service staff so they would probably have to refer it to their back office team. Just speculating on that as I work in an accounts environment but have no visibility of payment rejections .

Si_Haworth

I suppose I'm just unclear why they would reject it if they've assured me any credits or debits would automatically transfer over. 

eskbanker

I wonder if there have been some crossed wires?

There is a Current Account Switching Service, which is widely used and does redirect inbound payments as well as transferring outbound payment instructions such as direct debit mandates and standing orders.

However, this can't be used to switch a joint account to a sole one, and won't be used to switch between accounts at the same bank, so it sounds like their assurances may have related to a CASS switch even though that wasn't actually being used?

There is also a partial switching service (the predecessor of the full CASS one), which allows outbound instructions to be moved over but won't redirect the inbound payments if I recall correctly....