"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 think this could be quite common.

I once had a payment for about £21,000 from the local council into my account, which was a delightful surprise as it was nothing to do with me.

I contacted the council straight away and sent them a cheque paying it back, because I’m not a twat.

I'm buying a house and my solicitors have sent me a letter telling me that when I transfer money to them for the sale, I should do it face to face in the office or by telephone to avoid someone scamming me, and they then go on to say, in quite insultingly large letters, that it's not their fault if I get defrauded or pay the wrong person.

I did wonder why they asked for a cheque for first checks, but now it's obvious, it's so they can check that my bank details match the ones I've given them.

But mistakes are made. i think the real fault lies with the recipient who must have KNOWN it wasn't his (or her) money, but tried to spend it anyway. If they'd done that with money mistakenly paid in by HMRC or any Benefits agency, they would have been prosecuted instantly, wouldn't they?

My uncle had £500K paid into his bank by his pension provider. It took loads of phone calls and week and weeks to sort it out. Eventually my cousin suggested they do double check again, because if they say once more that they don't make mistakes, the money will be spent and they won't have a hope in hell of getting it back. Surprisingly they discovered they had made a mistake and requested the money be returned.

“If they’d have done that with money mistakenly paid in by HMRC or any Benefits agency, they would have been prosecuted instantly wouldn’t they.”

Does a bear shit in the woods

I was speechless when I read that. How could the scummy recipient live with themselves for daring to think they could steal that man’s money?!! Mistakes happen but this is such a lot of money, it’s common decency to give it straight back.

I'd once received about £10k in an account that I thought had been closed. The money had sat in there for about a year, when I realised that it was in there I told my bank, but they said they didn't know where it had come from.
As I'd asked for the account to be closed a year beforehand, I had assumed that it was closed. But no. The bank had made a mistake. It took months of going backwards and forwards and I never found out what had actually happened. I got £20 compensation. Looks like I could've just kept it! (only kidding) I still think something dodgy was going on at the bank.

I work in finance (local government) and there are 6 of us working in the office and all of us check invoices and bank details before they are paid. 6 of us!

This is truly one fucked up story.

And the person who received it in error? What a cunt.

To those wondering why the banks don’t match names, the vast majority are working on terrible legacy systems that simply don’t have the functionality. It’s a MASSIVE undertaking to implement this.

The bank needs to prove ownership, though, if the other person refuses to refund the sum

The name not matching the account, is proof enough that there has been a mistake and the money in the recipient account was unintended. Plus the paper trail of the inheritance, would make it even clearer to the bank who owns the money.

I work in a solicitors and we ask clients to give us their bank statement before we send them money for this very reason.

It had to be an original bank statement that has been posted to them so there’s no chance of people altering the bank details to have it paid into someone else’s account (benefit fraud) and we can see the account number, sort code, name and address match.

The amount of people that complain about having to provide a bank statement is unreal! They see it as an invasion of their privacy, never mind that we’re trying to protect their money!

We always do a small test run first, too.

But it does seem crazily wrong that the recipient can't be forced to give back money that he knew didn't belong to him.

To those wondering why the banks don’t match names, the vast majority are working on terrible legacy systems that simply don’t have the functionality. It’s a MASSIVE undertaking to implement this

If only they worked in businesses that made billions of pounds in profit and could invest in some modern IT systems.......

Yes because it’s that straightforward 😏

Those doing small test runs every time - how does that work with businesses? I can absolutely see it being fine with occasional huge sums but I routinely pay eg tradespeople sums of £50 or so by transfer, do they mind if you ask them to check a token transfer first? I'd feel a bit cheeky in those circumstances. Also larger organisations, eg my DCs secondary schools (pay for trips etc) - would you do it to them?

Babybel - surely most people have all their bank statements online now? My friend's house sale nearly fell through because she couldn't get a posted out copy of a bank statement when it was asked for at the last minute.

Yes because it’s that straightforward

Not straightforward..but they do have a lot of profits available to invest in modern systems.

Yes they do but it’s such a large undertaking and hugely risky, particularly for the large older institutions.

There will come a point at which they will have to make the change but I can fully understand their reticence.

Having working on a large scale project to migrate platforms it’s something that shouldn’t be entered into lightly.

It's not just buying systems, though. It's managing the disruption while things are transferred from one system to another. Banks can't just say 'right, we are shutting down for a week while we take all our data off one system and load it onto another - apologies to all our customers who won't be able to access their accounts' and nor can they say 'we're closing all our branches and call centres for a week while we train staff on this new system we've put in.' It all has to be completed in very gradual stages so the show is kept on the road.

It all has to be completed in very gradual stages so the show is kept on the road

Techsplaining?

Not sure what you mean by 'techsplaining'.

Not sure what you mean by 'techsplaining

When you explain something about technology to someone who understands technology.

See Mansplaining...

Confirmation of Payee (validating the name matches the account details) is being rolled out early next year by the big 6 banking groups in the UK. Regulatory deadline is end of March.

I will be glad when they have to match the name.

I hate setting up a new payment especially for a large transfer. Even though I check and check again it's easy to screw up a number.

Oh and happy to answer any questions about it. I'm project managing the rollout in one of the banks.

Well, I'm not particularly technical so I don't think I can 'techsplain'.

Comments suggesting the problem could be solved by simply investing in new computer systems didn't indicate an appreciation of the disruption that would be involved, so didn't reflect any understanding of technology.

I can only respond to the comments that are on here. If you are in fact a technical wizard but choosing to be provocative by making faux naive comments, I have no way of knowing that.

I'm wondering how the name matching will work. If someone has their middle name on their bank account will you have to use that? Some people put on their details Ms M.S. Surname, others might put Mary Surname, will there be a common format? I can see it being complicated.