"I lost £193,000 but the bank offered me £25 in compensation"

[chomalungma]

www.theguardian.com/money/2019/dec/07/i-lost-my-193000-inheritance-with-one-wrong-digit-on-my-sort-code

I don't even know where to start with this.
A solicitor was sending an inheritance to a client. The client gave the right details, but the wrong sort code.

The bank transferred the money. The mistake was realised but the bank was unable to get the money back and the person who got it started spreading it around and refused to refund it,

Turns out that one of the solutions is to ensure that the name matches the account as well. This is all to do with bank transfer fraud.
This won't happen until March next year.

In the meantime, he went to court to force the bank to reveal the name of the customer. Barclays fought it - but eventually they had to. He did eventually get the money from the customer via the court.

The bank refused to pay the legal fees for what the client had to do. But when contacted by the Guardian, they did. All £46,000 of them.

It's too easy to make transfer errors - even if you check carefully. Banks should check carefully to ensure that the bank account is the same name as expected and there should be a system if money is put in the wrong account and the bank knows there's been an error.

I do the same as Frenchw1fe, even though I might only be transferring a much smaller amount like £700.
I’ll do a more distinctive amount like £12.34

The person who kept the money is absolute scum.

@ginghamstarfish Banks shouldn't be allowed to give two customers the same account number in the first place!

that's, why, they, have, sort, codes....?

The client gave the right details, but the wrong sort code.

The client gave the right details, but the wrong sort code.

So in other words the wrong details, then?

I can transfer fund electrically and a screen comes up stating it can not be retrieved if a mistake happens.

I double check everything. Just in case.

So in other words the wrong details, then

So the client gave most of the right details.

If you are giving bank details, you'd hope that if one of the details didn't match what was on record, then something would flag up.

Numbers are easily transposed.

Also, since this money was an inheritance and the transfer made by a solicitor, all the evidence was there. The accidental recipient didn’t have a leg to stand on. Why weren’t they arrested for theft?

I think part of it will be Barclays following rules designed to protect honest people. The payer can't unilaterally reverse a bank transfer, allowing that would cause havoc. The bank won't just hand out personal details of accounts, that would be exploitable itself by fraudsters.

But not having the name checks in place that should have already been done is shit.

In 2018, I transferred £150k out of a Barclays account into another bank which I had to do in my local Barclays branch.
The customer service adviser first sent over £10 to the new bank.
Upon confirmation that the other bank had indeed received it, Barclays then sent over the full amount and also got further confirmation that the money had arrived ok.
I was very impressed with their service. Shame it's slipped a bit since then.

Really the banks are at fault. I had no idea that it didn’t matter what name you put when you make a transfer. I have been assuming all these years that it actually would be rejected if you disnt get the name right. Even down to the format, eg full name and not initial. I am so shocked to hear that something as basic as this when it comes to checks has not been in place all this time.

They have massive fraud departments yet don’t make a basic cross-reference check like this?! Unbelievable.

It’s a huge security failure.

This is why banks are bringing in this:

The banking industry promised that from mid-2019 name checks would be carried out when customers sent money to other people, largely to halt a rising tide of bank transfer fraud. But the timetable was delayed, and it will now not come into force until the end of March next year

Barclays are not the only bank, they are all like this btw, so if you think you are protected because you put a name in the reference box you are wrong.

I’m clearly naive but I’m shocked at the person who kept the money. I don’t know how they could live with themselves.

The problem seems to be that Barclays wouldn't say who had the money.

So even if it's not legal for the wrong recipient to keep the money, if you don't know who has your money then you can't take them to court!

And as it wasn't the banks mistake they washed their hands of it.

ANd I don’t understand how taking receipt of money that you know was not intended to you is not considered by the banks to be wrong, but when a bank client transfers money to a fraudster using all the CORRECT details because they have been a bit gullible and conned by some scummy criminal, that banks will make sure the money is returned.

It was CLEARLY the wrong destination in this case, so whether that is fraud or accident should make no difference to the bank’s ability to return the money to the intended owner.

@CurlyhairedAssassin they don't. I mean, they might sometimes, but in general, they don't.

Bank transfers are not protected.

Why are they not legally obliged to make sure money gets to the intended recipient?

the intended legal recipient (so no fraud involved)

yy screaming I always send a token 50p and wait until the recipient can see it before I send over the full amount.

I'm shocked that solicitors don't do this with large sums of money.

Why are they not legally obliged to make sure money gets to the intended recipient?

At the moment, the bank doesn't have any way of knowing who the intended recipient is. They will just act on the instructions given. As pps have said, this is set to change - but not all banks will be part of the new system at first - only the major UK banks.

Surely you give your banks address so it matches the sort code.
This whole thing stinks - when I transferred my mortgage deposit to my solicitor in person at the bank, the teller made me check she hadn't made a mistake with the numbers so it would be my fault if it went to the wrong place. There has to be an easier way!

My friend lost £600 like this , transferred it to her partners account but 1 number in account number was wrong so it ended up in someone else's bank

Her bank wouldn't help get it back they sent a letter to owner off account but they didn't respond and that was all they said they could do.

It was £600 she really couldn't afford to lose either and was really distressing for her and her partner

It just is so wrong that banks can't just take it back straight away.

Surely you give your banks address so it matches the sort code.

No - all you need is the sort code and account number at the moment. The bank will just send the payment to whatever digits you have given them.

I don't know the legalities to be sure, but if I instruct a payment to go somewhere, I should be certain I'm sending it to the right place. If the bank knows the recipient is a fraudster, they close the account. If they don't, then no there is nothing they can do.

Oftentimes the bank will stop fraudulent payments going through if they recognise a vulnerable customer. Of course these cases don't get in the papers - but working for a bank there's always internal news of Mrs Smith in Cardiff who was attempting to take out her life savings to pay for a roof but the bank staff recognised she was being coerced (or whatever).

Sharing the name of the unintended recipient won't be helpful, it was pure coincidence in this case they lived in the same town. There's probably thousands of people with my name using my bank. The onus is showing that a mistake was made and the payment was supposed to go elsewhere - I'm assuming in this case that the unintended recipient said yes, he knew Mr X and was expecting the money. Barclays isn't then going to pay legal fees to try and prove he's lying, that is for the customer to do. Mr X did provide incorrect details.

It just is so wrong that banks can't just take it back straight away.

It wouldn't be right to be able to reverse a payment straight away - as you might hand over goods or perform a service on the strength of a received payment, then if someone asked for it back, you'd be out of pocket. Some checks need to be made.