Transfered all our money into wrong account

[swimmer55]

First time poster, just had a panicked call from my husband, he has transferred all of our savings in to a new account at a new bank (its been sitting in a current account for a couple of years gaining no interest so now interest rates are rising slightly we decided to transfer), by transposing 2 numbers it has gone to a strangers account, the bank are on it but have said it will take up to 24 days and there's a possibilitythey won't be able to return it, has this happened to anyone else and what was the outcome ? Its all of our savings so we are panicking!

I missed this post!

Sounds like you should get the money back soon!

Who do you bank with op? We're with First Direct and it's quite a struggle to transfer money if there's the slightest discrepancy in details. When paying bills we often have to go back and check someone's account details to make sure the name exactly matches the account number.

Fingers crossed you get your money back soon.

I had to do something similar and was so stressed I rang the bank helpline and made them stay on the phone with me for moral support while I did it. The person said I was their favourite call of the day. 😂

And I guess to those saying that the bank should reimburse...the bank is a business and if it's your mistake then it's your responsibility.

I did a payment recently and you have to click numerous checks to say you are happy. There is some self responsibility here.

No, it isn’t theft apparently. Someone sadly at my workplace transferred about £24k to the wrong account, we knew who received the money, they acknowledged receipt but they wouldn’t return it!

Not much we could do, even with taking legal advice (which, ironically was in house).

We tried to recoup it over a few years then accounts had to write it off. Maybe the law has changed now (this was 5ish years ago) but it’s just shit and makes me very wary of bank transfer payments of any sort.

Yes that's what I'd expect to happen. It's incredibly rare that a mistake in typing the account number would result in an actual account. It's very clever!

Money only usually goes to the wrong account when someone uses an actual wrong account number, I.e. when they pay the wrong known person, not because of a mistake in the account number.

Theft requires dishonest intent on the part of the person (now) holding the property. And that intent must have been formed before they acquired the property. That's why in these cases the recipient can't be treated as a criminal.

Moreover, unless the person making the transfer was the victim of fraud or other criminal activity in making it, the bank can't do much.

In such cases the only recourse would be to sue the person who received the money on the basis you made a mistake. And there's no guarantee a court would order restitution. After all, this isn't as if the account holder accidentally dropped the money and the recipient found it. This is much more as if the account holder deliberately posted the money through the recipients letterbox.

When I'm doing this I only ever do £1 to start with then I can check the transfer has gone through correctly as I am paranoid about making a mistake

Did the online banking not warn him that the number and the name of the account didn’t match? The online banking system checks that the bank sort code is correct then searches for the correct account name. It says if there is a discrepancy and asks if you want to go ahead. That should have been a red flag to your h...

Not all banks have this technology.

Hope your money is recovered. My bank ( the red one with a Spanish name) will ot transfer any money if the account number and name don't match

Yes I do this. Most of the time it checks the name matches the account but not always (Metro bank doesn't seem to work) so it's a useful extra step. The tradesmen never mind as long as you transfer the rest quickly once they've said the £1 (I usually do £10) has arrived safely.

Online banking now has several checks and pop ups/warning.

When your husband put the details in, the name and account number wont have matched. He would have had the warning telling him that the names and account number dont match. He would have had to click that he understood and that it was OK, he still wanted to transfer.

So... you wouldnt get a refund from the bank. He knowingly transferred to an account which didnt match.

If the account doesnt exist and it bounces back then that's great. But if it does and is gone, then you cant blame the bank and ask for them to reimburse you.

He'll need to pay more attention.

I think it's really interesting that NORMAL people don't have to give NORMAL people their money back

As I read that a utility company had given someone 24 million quid and the normal person didn't get to keep it

I'm guessing every time an organisation makes a big mistake the money is returned by the bank

I used to do the £1 transfer first when setting up a new payee until the bank froze my account because they said that fraudsters used the same pattern of small transfer followed by a large one.

I'm so paranoid about this that I always send £1 first when I set up a new account or pay a company.

I hope you get this sorted 🤞🏻

In this day and age, if anyone is doing online banking with a bank that doesn't cross check names and accounts, issuing a big red warning if they don't match - they really ought to change banks.

I do this too 👍

The solicitor handling my grandparents estate entered incorrect bank details and almost lost my parents' inheritance. They manages to sort it but, when it happened I was snooping around trying to find out what they could do and came across this story.

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

Absolute madness that it isn't counted as theft!

Did you read the update? He was taken to court and ordered to pay it back, which he apparently did.

The update made me laugh though with the guy who received the money in error saying “I tried to get the bank to take it back, they wouldn’t let me.” And the bank saying “no you didn’t and we have the recorded phone calls as proof”.

I am not accusing OP's H of anything and she knows him best but this is just the type of BS my Dad would tell my Mum to cover the fact that he had either spent it all or it didnt exist in the first place
I appreciate jumping to this conclusion here isnt what most people would do (I know, I have Ishoos!!) but are you sure its true OP?

In future, when transferring large amounts it’s recommended you transfer £1 first, check with the recipient it’s in the account, then transfer the rest (as the details will be saved so no way to make the error again).

I hope you get your money back.

I had someone put money in my account by accident once. My bank rang me and asked if I was willing for it to be sent back or not. This person had clicked my name as a payee and not someone else’s so even more their human error than one digit wrong.

I told them to send it straight it back. I sometimes panic transferring between my own accounts with the same bank when I can see it’s left one but not hit the other like WHERES MY MONEY!! Panic.

Gingerfigs: not all banks are in this system. For example, Chase Bank is not recognised by my bank.

Someone mistakenly sent a few hundred pounds to my son's account (childs account) the bank just took it back and wrote a letter telling us that's what had happened. They didn't ask us for it back, nit that we would have kept it.