Can someone help, credit card company have 'lost' £4000 of my money.

[tiredconfusedhungry]

Such a long story, I can give more detail where needed but I'm nearly in tears so apologies if this makes no sense.

So, long story short.

• paid off credit card in full (£4000) in August 2023.
• random direct debit taken by credit card company this month for £300. After nearly 3 hours of phone calls, we've now established that the payment made in August was flagged as fraud (not sure by who) so wasn't actually paid off of my account. This wasn't communicated to me in any way.
• more phone calls, credit card company are saying that the £4000 was returned to me in January 2024. But it wasn't. It doesn't show on my statement and I've even phoned my bank who say that it definitely has not been returned.
• credit card company are refusing to budge, won't refund me back the £300 which has left me with no money and I'm still being charged as though I owe £4000 on my credit card.

My last phone call today I asked to speak to a manager or someone higher, apparently early there is no one in until Friday.

Any suggestions?

CC company wont even accept me sending them a bank statement as proof I haven't received it.

I don't get it either. I remember at the time because I was paying off a few things in one day, my bank phoned me and asked to confirm it was me, but nothing was said about it affecting any of those payments. Plus there were no issues with another card I paid off. None of this makes sense and the company have been less than helpful.

Sorry @Greyat I was getting the wrong end of the stick. My bank are saying that payment was successful, my credit card statement shows it was received and my balance went to zero (a dd was taken the following month for £2.53 - interest adjustments?). But my balance remained as zero until February this year.

Something I missed from my OP is that I went to open the app in December and it was locked, asked me to phone them. Which I did, they explained that they needed to check the source of the money, fine I assumed it was because of money laundering. I had to go and get docs certified at the post office and send bank statements showing the incoming payment (from a loan we took out) to prove it was all legit. The docs were returned to me with a letter saying it was all fine. Didn't think any more of it until a random direct debit was taken this month as I've not needed to use the card, it's one we planned to just keep for emergencies.

Firstly don’t panic, I work in complaints and money doesn’t go ‘missing’. It will be in a suspense account somewhere. They will either locate the payment or FOS will make them pay it back to you anyway.

I recommend making a complaint with your bank as well if you haven’t already done this, as both companies need to look at it.

@LadyAroundTown I know it isn't missing, it has to be somewhere. But neither company can find it and I'll be honest neither seem that bothered in helping us resolve it, in my eyes this isn't my issue to resolve, this is an internal problem with the CC company. Until it is resolved however, they will be taking £300 per month from me, potentially for another 2 months. That's money I don't have. I have £52 in my account right now to last me until 25th April because of this.

Write to the guardian money.

Did the company paying the loan pay the money directly to your credit card, or did the loan go into your current account and then you made the payment to your credit card?

@Qwerty21 to my current account, I then made the payments from there. DH is just on the phone to CC getting the ref number. I'm on live chat to the bank getting them to check it.

So the CC company must have sent the money to your banks suspense/holding account. They should be able to provide you with the details of exactly when they sent it, then your bank should locate it in that account and transfer it to your current account

@Qwerty21 HBSC are adamant it isn't in a suspense account. I have that from them in writing this morning.

Scary how big sums of money are really just numbers on a screen and can disappear at will!

What's even more annoying is the CC company have just told DH that he can't contact them anymore about this because in their eyes it is resolved and there is nothing left for them to investigate.

What cc company is this? Have they provided you with the payment reference number? And have the logged your complaint for you ?

@Qwerty21 Virgin Money. I logged the complaint online. But I'll be making another one at this rate. I'm sat on the phone to the bank now because despite telling me to get the payment trace reference for them to check it, the person I'm talking to now is saying they have no way of checking incoming payments!

When you speak to a manager tell them you want the money wiped or will be going directly to the ombudsman. They held your money from august to Jan and then didn't inform you when they returned the money which didn't show up in your bank. You had no idea until they took more money which then took from Jan until April for them to take a DD. I really think the ombudsman would side with you

I assume both you and DH have checked all current accounts it could have been sent to?

@randomusernam I think it will end up going to the ombudsman, but I can't do that until my original complaint is dealt with, which can take up to 8 weeks. Which I appreciate there is a process, but unhelpful when I have very little money as it is and they are taking £300 a month from me.

Yes. We have a joint account which is where the payment to CC company was made from and where they are saying the refund was sent. It's not in there. We each have our own account any it's in neither of those either, they are with a different bank entirely but I have checked anyway.

So VM have given you the details from the payment trace which says it was paid to HSBC, and HSBC are saying they can't do anything with that?

If for some reason HSBC rejected the payment then it would have gone back to VM with a message saying why they've rejected it. If that's happened it could be sat in there suspense account unapplied, but HSBC should tell you they rejected it

I'd escalate at HSBC as well as VM

HSBC have found it. They can't tell me why it wasn't found yesterday when I called, the only explanation they can give is that the person I spoke to yesterday may have been less experienced??

So now I've got to wait 7-10 days for the money to come back into my account so I can pay the CC company (again).

Am I right in thinking I should be asking for the account to be settled as it was in August and any payments made since Feb 2024 to be refunded? DH is saying to ask for compensation but I'm crap at this kind of thing.

One thing I will say, is their communication leaves a lot to be desired. Between these 2 companies, neither got in touch to say there were any problems. We only realised when an app wasn't working and then random direct debits were taken. Meanwhile HSBC have had nearly £4.5k of our money and haven't said a word.

submit a complaint via the complaints form on their website and ask fo the account to be settled as of the original date and how you will be compensated for the time and distress. They'll send you at least £50 IME

Yes that's a reasonable ask - when your complaint gets picked up they should be asking what outcome you want from their investigation, so be clear that you want to be put back in the position that you were in when you made the payment in August.

This shite service and lack of communication is the type of thing they really shouldnt bother trying to defend, and they'll probably bung you a couple of hundred quid for the inconvenience too

Set out a timeline very explicitly of what happened and when.

If you do incur any fees, interest or charges then I'd be complaining to HSBC for that to be reimbursed

Oh and also specify to VM that they need to report the account as settled as of August to each of the credit bureaus- this might take a while to correct

Glad it has been found.
Definitely make a compliant and ask for compensation - it has caused you financial pressure, unnecessary stress and waste of time.

I would also want to ensure that this debacle hasn't affected your credit rating

Not that anyone wanted an update, but it's useful having this to remember what happened when because I'll be making complaints to both Virgin Money and HBSC.

So today is 10 days since they said I should have the money back, and you guessed it... nothing. So I've spent another hour explaining the whole thing to 2 more people at HSBC who now have no idea what a suspense account is and don't know why I was told I'd have money back as nothing was actioned after my last call to them.

I ended up getting so upset on the phone, although I have no idea how I didn't get angry, they don't seem to think this is a big deal. The direct debits VM have taken have completely wiped me out, I've had to borrow some money from my Mum just so I can get diesel and food. And the woman on the phone just kept saying 'I understand' on repeat when clearly she didn't.

They promised that someone would phone me back within 30 minutes to put in a complaint which also didn't happen.

This is beyond a joke now, it's causing me so much aggro and stress.