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.

This is not the case for some credit cards

But (a) this isn’t about a credit card and (b) it’s the case for ALL credit cards.

There’s no such thing as a joint credit card. All the liability sits with the primary card holder. You can have additional cardholders but they’re not account holders.

With current accounts both parties on a joint account are jointly and severally liable.

Thank you, I read the article and it is scary! I will insist on calling the bank myself and not accept any calls purporting to be from them.

Keep it, withdraw all the money, then close the account.

OP definitely call your bank right away (as in, immediately) - this happened to us a couple of years ago 3x payments appeared in quick succession and then our account was emptied along with the payments later that day. Essentially our account had been hacked and then used for money laundering. It was a complete nightmare to sort out. Ask them to freeze your account just in case?

@EishetChayil

Keep it, withdraw all the money, then close the account.

The OP has said more than once that she's a decent honest person, why would anyone suggest she suddenly goes rogue and starts stealing money

What a stupid suggestion

I had similar once. About a year after I moved I had about £150 paid into my account with the old house address as a reference.
I contacted the solicitor, estate agents and bank and no one knew who it was from.
No one has ever asked for it back.

How intriguing.

happened to us.
a considerably higher sum though.

turned out to be an input error (switched digits) when tranferring the house deposit.

luckily it was not friday afternoon and we were able to solve it quickly --still get the christmas cards from the very relieved house buyers.

and yes, scammers like friday afternoon or last day before bank holidays.

the lazarus heist was carefully orchestrated around lining up bank holidays across the world.

Does Googling the account details come up with anything?

I work for a bank.

Call them when you get home!

Best case scenario it's an error and they'll get their security team to send it back.
Worse case it's part of money laundering or a scam- if the sender reports it to their bank your bank will freeze your account until it's sorted.

We had a payment into our work bank account that we weren't expecting, then someone called saying they'd paid us in error and could we transfer into a different account......... our stupid then PA was in the process of doing so, but needed DH to put a code in and he realised straight away that it was a scam. We rang the bank and Police, and let them deal with it.

Leave it to the bank to sort.

Could it be a tax refund? A lot of HMRC accounts are based in Swansea iirc

@ShrinkingViolet9

This is not the case for some credit cards.

I know. But it IS the case for joint accounts, hence me saying I thought you were confusing joint accounts with something else. Turns out you were.

Credit cards and primary account holders have no place here. It is a joint account.

I always call them back through their main number when I get an alert call from the fraud team (has happened a few times, always re a genuine payment of mine).

The bank has been fine about me doing this, they don't get shirty at all.

The other important thing is to call another number in between, to make sure the line is actually clear. There was a wheeze where the fraudsters stayed on the line, so when you redialed you'd still find yourself talking to them and their mates.

Bank error in your favour! Now you can buy Mayfair!

@HolidayNanny

Bank error in your favour! Now you can buy Mayfair!

You haven't won a recent radio phone in competition?

It could be a scam or a genuine mistake, ring the fraud line and they will be able to send it back to the account, if necessary I believe they can block transactions from that account too:

I also had just under 3k go in my account today, but mine was my student finance maintenance loan. I think a lot of payments have been made today. I wonder if it's someone's student finance payment been sent to the wrong account. I'm probably wrong, but you never know. Hope you manage to get to the bottom of it soon!

A friend of mine, got a message from her employer at Christmas a computer glitch had overpaid everyone, they were told not to touch it. She said it was huge but wouldn't tell me how much

Clearly not a scam! No scam artist is going to risk £30, never mind £3k. And if you return it without the worst case scenario is that the scam man has his money back, and your bank details. Which he already had in order to send you the money!

How interesting I hope it does turn out to be for you!

Fraud helpline will help OP. Hope you get to the bottom of it.

@AuntyBumBum

Clearly not a scam! No scam artist is going to risk £30, never mind £3k. And if you return it without the worst case scenario is that the scam man has his money back, and your bank details. Which he already had in order to send you the money!

See:

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

"...I decided to check my online statement to see if there were any other purchases I should be worried about and I found that £1,000 had been deposited in my account by a pay day loan company.

"I started to panic, for a second I thought my partner may have taken it out as a loan and that maybe we were in serious financial trouble. This was fortunately not the case and he was just as clueless as I was as to where the money had come from."