Money appeared in my bank account

[AlexaShutUp]

Just under £3k has mysteriously appeared in our joint bank account. Dh knows nothing about it. Neither do I.

I will talk to the bank on Monday, but in the meantime, I'm speculating. Could this be something dodgy or a genuine mistake?

It's an Internet transfer from a bank in Swansea.

You don’t have to give it back.

You are warned about large transactions being final.

self-assessment income tax payments tend to go awry this month.

@BluebellsGreenbells

You don’t have to give it back.

You are warned about large transactions being final.

If someone has transferred the money in error, I would want to give it back. I would hate to think of someone worrying about losing their money.

I had a friend who worked for a major bank. He said a disgruntled employee had been found to be transferring random sums of the bank's money to random people.

@BluebellsGreenbells

You don’t have to give it back.

You are warned about large transactions being final.

It would be pretty unpleasant not to though wouldn't it?

@elelel

I really think the OP should phone her bank now, if she has not already done so (or her husband if he is the primary account holder of their joint account).

We have moved on from the 1950s. Women are allowed to phone the bank about their own accounts. A joint account is just that.

I think you are confusing joint accounts with something else. Joint account holders are equal.

This is not the case for some credit cards.

@amylou8

I'd be keeping quiet about this, but then I am a bit dodgy 😁 Of course it's not your money, and you shouldn't spend it/expect to be able to keep it, but no harm in 'not noticing' and seeing what happens.

Aren't you a nice person, are you just very self aware-ly honest or do you think depriving the rightful owner of the money is an OK thing to do?

What does it say in your online banking. If its sent by a person there should be a name, if its a company it will have the company name.

I think you do have to give it back. There have been several court cases over the years about people spending money they knew was not theirs

@Thatsplentyjack

What does it say in your online banking. If its sent by a person there should be a name, if its a company it will have the company name.

There is no name. Only an account number.

@Spitspotsput

I think you do have to give it back. There have been several court cases over the years about people spending money they knew was not theirs

There is no question of us not giving it back, whether we have to or not. It isn't our money!

www.walesonline.co.uk/news/scammers-paid-1000-account-told-15853749

‘Scammers paid £1,000 into my account so I told my bank - but that’s just what they wanted me to do’

Years ago I had trouble with a bank account but the other way round. On a couple of occasions someone extracted something like 20,000 from my account - I would ring up the bank and wail at them, and they would fix it. (I didn't have anything like that amount of money, so the account would show an overdrawn balance of 19890 or something.)
They just said it was an 'error' and accepted it was nothing I had done, but it was very tiresome as it meant I couldn't access the couple of hundred quid or so that was genuinely mine and genuinely in the account, for two or three days...

Banks sometimes make mistakes. I got a panicky call from a woman in the bank saying she had wrongly put money in my account and asking me to transfer it back from the bank. Legally they cant transfer it back themselves. I actually went into the branch as I wasn't sure it was legit, but it was.

@BluebellsGreenbells

You don’t have to give it back.

You are warned about large transactions being final.

www.money.co.uk/guides/can-you-keep-money-accidentally-paid-into-your-bank-account.htm

Keeping any money wrongly credited to your account could lead to you being charged with ‘retaining wrongful credit' under the Theft Act 1968.

While most bank account numbers are unique, I believe that HSBC (and likely others) have some duplicates where accounts were opened at different branches on the same day and IT systems weren't up to date. They have different sort codes, but there are stories about errors taking a long time to rectify in the press.

When this happened to me it was a tax rebate.

@AlexaShutUp

Can't really understand how the money could have been transferred in error, as you usually have to match the account number with the name when you set up a transfer. But we are definitely not expecting any payments...

Yes me too, but I think it can and has happened to people.

Definitely talk to your bank and don't response to anyone online who says it's their money.

How intriguing.
I was sent an envelope through the post a few days before christmas - just a stamp, had my name and address, def Royal Mail as I saw the postie deliver a few other things with the letter. No post mark on the stamp, and inside £80 in cash with a plain piece of paper saying "with thanks".
No idea who it could be. I still haven't found out who could have been so generous- and wonder if it was even meant for me- but what should I do? I still have the envelope and money.

This happened to us about a decade ago. It was about £5K and my immediate thought that someone was trying to use our account to money launder. I went into the back immediately and had a rather incredulous member of the bank staff try to convince me that it should be there legitimately!

Anyway it turned out that it was a cashier error at the end of the day. They'd processed a cheque (in the days when you could deposit them in a special box) for me and then clearly processed the next cheque on the pile into my account erroneously (rather than logging out and logging into the correct account).

I wasn't entirely impressed that it still took the bank a matter of hours to sort out the issue (even after I'd reported it), with someone phoning me to do so after the manager in-branch was already on the case.

And not so much as a thank-you or £10 reward for helping them sort out their mess as quickly as possible!

do you have tax credit?

OP, exact same thing happened to me a couple of years ago. Smaller amount. I rang my bank and they insisted it was a genuine transfer and I was the intended recipient. I insisted I wasn't expecting anything and it was causing me worry wondering where it was from. (I laugh now when I remember this)

I can't remember how the phone call ended but a couple of days later I had my answer when I received a bank statement from a savings account that pays annual interest that I'd competely forgotten I'd opened - I'd had some inheritance money and just shoved it in a long term fixed savings account while the interest rate was good (the good old days ha ha!). It was the annual interest from that! It was paid out to my current account, it wasn't allowed to be paid back into the savings account to compound, and I'd forgotten it would be due beginning of January and also that it would be paid OUT of the savings account and not just back into it.

Just double check it's nothing like that before you contact your bank like the idiot I was fretting that you were going to be framed for a financial crime .

There will be an emergency out of hours number for the bank, probably on the back of your card. They will take details and refer to the fraud dept as needed.

Meanwhile, do you have any but who has your account details, no relatives die recently? My parents have put gifts into my account from maturity funds in the past not via them so it confused me

No tax credits.

I really don't think it can be a genuine payment. There is nothing at all I can think of. I will double check with DH.

@ShrinkingViolet9

www.walesonline.co.uk/news/scammers-paid-1000-account-told-15853749

‘Scammers paid £1,000 into my account so I told my bank - but that’s just what they wanted me to do’

Wow that’s scary. They were doing all the right things but still almost got caught out.

@AlexaShutUp - please read this article. Just in case you’ve missed it in amongst all the posts.

No relatives have died. Also, it's quite a random sum to transfer - not a round number!