ING - repaying their mistake is crippling us

CazyDee

Its another case of the little people vs a faceless corporation.

I am now having to paying ING £200 a month, every month for a mistake that they made and it's crippling us.

"Bank error in your favour" - I wish I'd taken them to court !


1 year ago I paid a cheque of £10,000 into my Auntie's account with ING.

£10,000 then appeared in my account.

I called ING to say they'd made a mistake but they assured me that there was no mistake.

(just for the record - this is a HUGE ammount of money to me but not to my auntie - she lent me the money to put a deposit on a new house and I paid her back with the equity from my old house and all of our 'rainy day' savings)

I was in tears over the phone to them. Finally I'd been able to pay my Auntie back and she'd put it straight into my account.
I called my Auntie and thanked her for the money. she thanked me for paying it back. Neither of us realised what had happened and that we'd got our wires crossed. She assumed the money had gone into her account but has quite a lot of money so didn't think to check.

My husband & I had plans for the money. First we'd get our new house sorted and then go on holiday.....

3 months later we'd spent up from our current accounts and and started to withdraw money from the ING account.

We had already spent over £5000 on a new bathroom and kitchen when I received a letter from ING saying that actually, they had made a mistake and wanted all of the money back.

With no other savings we were stuck.
They suggested taking out a loan and repaying immediately.
Then they suggested paying them back in monthly payments with an 8% interest rate.
I was in such a state that I didn't know what to do. None of the local solicitors wanted to touch it and the citizens advice people said I just had to stomach the repayments.

So now I'm paying back £200 every month.
I only earn £21,000 a year and I'm struggling.

That's my venting done. Hasn't helped really - just got me upset all over again. 4 years to go.....

aliasojo

CazyDee wrote:

Finally I'd been able to pay my Auntie back and she'd put it straight into my account.
I called my Auntie and thanked her for the money. she thanked me for paying it back. Neither of us realised what had happened and that we'd got our wires crossed. She assumed the money had gone into her account but has quite a lot of money so didn't think to check.....

I'm confused. If you paid your Auntie back....why did she put it into YOUR account?

Happy to admit I'm missing something here but I don't understand your post.

I also don't understand why you spent money you KNEW was not yours. It doesn't matter if ING told you it was...you knew it wasn't. It's not like it's an easy thing to get mixed up about, you must know how much money you have? It's not like we're talking about a few quid extra....it's 10 grand.

We had a similar situation with Alliance & Leicester a few years ago. We took out a loan then a year later we took out another so we had two small loans running alongside each other.

A&L stopped taking the payments for the first loan as they said it had been repaid. We knew it hadn't so we kept the payment money aside, we knew it wasn't ours to spend. A&L insisted the loan had been repaid for two months and we had to write several letters telling them they were wrong. They eventually admitted that they had made a mistake and said that if we hadn't kept on, we could have got away with having our loan wiped out. We eventually got a letter thanking us for our honesty.

The point is, they made a mistake, but we KNEW it, as did you. We KNEW how much money we should have, we KNEW the extra in our account every month wasn't ours.

Regardless of the crossed wires between you and your Aunt, surely you should have known roughly how much money you should have? People don't just have an extra 10K available to spend on house improvements out of the blue.

I know I sound unsympathetic, but I just don't understand how you thought you had extra money?

However, now you're in this situation I understand how difficult it must be. I expect you'll be keeping a close eye on your finances in the future?

jobbingmusician

CazyDee doesn't seem to have understood what happened, but I think I do. You thought your Auntie had given you the money, right? And she didn't realise that was what you thought.........

They are bloody cheeky, suggesting you take a loan to pay them back. But 8% is an extortionate rate. You could try to negotiate with them for a longer repayment period so that the effect isn't as bad on you). I would at least try writing them a letter pointing out that the initial error was theirs, and that this is affecting your life a lot...you are of course committed to paying the money back but can they please ensure that you are doing it the most cost-effective way.

Do you have a mortgage? If you have a flexible mortgage, it would be a lot cheaper to borrow the money from there to repay (assuming you have any equity in your house) - I think this is the cheapest way to borrow money atm, although I daresay a more experienced MSE'r will be along in a moment to put me right! :rotfl:

EDITED TO ADD MORE INFORMATION.

I think your basic problem now is that you have a £10,000 debt to repay from a low income. I still think 8% is pretty horrendous, especially as it's their mistake. Why not try contacting the National Debtline England to see if they have anything helpful to say? This page looks helpful, for a start http://www.nationaldebtline.co.uk/england_wales/review_pack.php?page=for_people_who_have_no_available_income_to_pay_creditors but it might be useful to ring them, and ask their advice about the cheapest way to repay the loan. I feel SO ANGRY :mad: on your behalf that this company is making interest from their mistake!

(Or could you explain what has happened to your Auntie and ask her if she would lend you the money all over again at a lower interest... )

aliasojo

Lol, I'm still confused christina. When you say 'you thought your Auntie had given you the money' do you mean given as in not expected back or given as it it was her that put the money in the account?

The OP said her Auntie lent her the money and that the OP had paid her back. So I still don't get why the OP would have thought it was the Aunt who put 10K in her acccount if she had given it back?

I agree with you that there is a cheaper/better way of repaying the money though.

jobbingmusician

I thought that CazyDee had finished paying her Auntie back, and that she (CazyDee) thought that her Auntie was so pleased to get all the money back that Auntie had then given CazyDee all the money as a present. That's the sort of crazy thing that might go on in my family!!!!

Rose999

Hi, I think I understand.
Aunt lent £10000 for deposit on house.
You later sold house and paid £10000 back to aunt from equity.
You then noticed £10000 back in your account and assumed aunt had paid it back into your account (and was letting you off paying her?)
You called aunt to thank her (for letting you off paying her) - she thanked you for paying money back to her (not knowing about the money going back into your account) - wires crossed.

Anyway, the fact that ING made this mistake, to me means that they should also be flexible with the repayments. As a previous poster stated, I would write a letter outlining your commitments and in the nicest way pointing out their mistake and is there not an agreement you could come to?

Good Luck!

aliasojo

Ok I get it now.

I have 2 problems with that scenario though. Firstly would you really just thank a person if you thought they'd let you off with a ten grand loan? Surely most people would have a conversation about it and say how kind it was of them to return the money and how grateful you were etc. I can't see (especially since OP says this is a huge amount of money to them) that you would just phone to say thanks without some added words about it.

Secondly, do families really just casually GIVE this kind of money to each other, again with no conversation about it? Would the Aunt not have called to say she'd decided to give the 10K back? You don't assume things over 10 grand surely?

Personally (and I stress this is only my take on the subject) the situation sounds very iffy to me. In fact I feel that the OP had a strong suspicion (at the very least) that the money in her account was a mistake and rather than delve too deeply into it after ING told her it was hers, she preferred to let things lie perhaps hoping it wouldn't come to light.

Interesting how Citizen's Advice didn't feel they could do much to help.

MarkyMarkD

Yep, I can't go down the "sympathy for the OP" route at all, here.

It sounds hugely like:

(1) OP meant to pay cheque into Aunty's account, but paid it into their own.
(2) OP queries why the money was in their own - IF say "no mistake" (because the money WAS in the account it was deposited to).
(3) OP goes on a spending spree with money they know isn't meant to be theirs.
(4) Aunty notices the missing £10k.
(5) Bank suggest perfectly reasonable ways for the OP to sort out THEIR mistake, by borrowing money from IF to repay the (now well overdue) loan from the Aunty.

Given that:

I paid a cheque of £10,000 into my Auntie's account with ING

and ING is not a branch-based bank, it seems rather unlikely that they put it in the wrong account. How was the money sent to them? By post (presumably) with a paying-in slip or covering letter?

jobbingmusician

Actually, I don't think it matters what the scenario is (except morally of course.) From the POV of us helpful souls, the OP still has the same problem to be solved - £10,000 debt to repay, and not enough income to repay it without a lot of pain. I still suggest something like nationaldebtline. (And I still think that we are crazy enough in my family to eally just casually GIVE this kind of money to each other, with no conversation about it - or at least with major crossed wires )

PS In case anyone is wondering, I do not know the OP! :)

aliasojo

eastchristina wrote:

Actually, I don't think it matters what the scenario is (except morally of course.) From the POV of us helpful souls, the OP still has the same problem to be solved - £10,000 debt to repay, and not enough income to repay it without a lot of pain. I still suggest something like nationaldebtline. (And I still think that we are crazy enough in my family to eally just casually GIVE this kind of money to each other, with no conversation about it - or at least with major crossed wires )

PS In case anyone is wondering, I do not know the OP! :)

I disagree I'm afraid. I think there is a world of difference between someone who has a genuine problem thrust upon them through no fault of their own and therefore it's likely that people would bend over backwards to help and advise if they can.....and someone who is in a situation such as this which appears to be partly (?) of their own making and they just want to come on here to moan about it.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not sugesting they don't still deserve help or advice, this situation still has to be dealt with regardless of rights and wrongs but if Citizen's Advice and solicitors can't/wont help, then what on earth would us lesser mortals be able to offer?

The other thing is, the OP isn't actually asking for help or advice, they just wanted to have a wee moan about the situation. If the situation was as the OP had stated, wouldn't you be asking in the Loans or Debt Free Board for advice?

Christina: I have to say you must have a very close, obliging family. I did a straw poll around a few of my friends this afternoon (I was bored, lol) and every one said that there is no way 10K would be deposited in another's account with little or no discussion first, during or after! I don't think most families would hand over that amount of cash quite so casually.

(That's not to say they wouldn't help out financially.....just not in such a casual manner.)

jobbingmusician

I think we're just disorganised in our family - or perhaps it's just me! I've been known to make loans to people and COMPLETELY forget I've done it (not £10k, admittedly, but reasonable amounts of money). When people give the money back I look at them blankly for a while........I really do forget!