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 nearly screwed up a transfer lately (only a tenner), but it told me the account name and number didn't match. Same for my brother last year when he tried to transfer money to me and I had a typo in the account number 😳

Thought they all did this now?

In my experience, it depends on the the bank. I’ve done it twice with a mistake in a payment over the last few years. The first time, it wasn’t my fault and it cost thousands and has taken years to correct, (I’m still dealing with it). The second it WAS my fault, and the bank corrected as soon as I contacted them. There could have been consequences (credit rating) but they didn’t apply them, because the money was paid at the right time in good faith.

This happened me last year, transferred thousands to the wrong person. Stressed for weeks but eventually bank sorted it. Keep the faith & keep the pressure on. It will eventually be returned.

You need to change your bank to one that doesn't charge for such a basic service. Which bank charges for transfers? That's very poor ime

How will faith help Do you not know about the many well publicised cases of people who have lost huge sums from this kind of thing? You getting your money back doesn't mean that everyone else has/will

It happened to me about 7 years ago. I didn't realise I'd transferred £6k of savings into the wrong bank account, for about a month. I checked on the ISA and found it was still emptied. I was in tears. My bank and the bank it had gone to worked on it and I got it back in 9 days. The longest 9 days of my life. If they hadn't been able to get it back, I would have lost the money as it was my error.

If you look online there are mostly horror stories of how people don't get their money back and the Police aren't interested but there are people who do get it back, like me, who probably just never put their good news story online. Try not to get disheartened, keep hope, stay polite with the banks when you contact them for updates. I'll keep my fingers crossed that you get your money back soon.

I received five thousand pounds into my bank account by mistake once. I notified the bank and they took it out again without me doing anything further.

Coastal. I was doing something similar for DDad. It was a huge amount and Nationwide (his bank) let me do it on my own - at home... Lloyds (my own bank) said that they wouldnt have allowed that and would expect me to get them to do it. And dont get me started on these people who try and scam the elderly often from abroad which makes them virtually untouchable.

Can you name the bank op, we're all assuming this is a uk transfer?

At least you haven’t inconvenienced someone else. I once had a large sum that was not mine appear in my account. It was not as simple as a phone call to the bank and the money disappears. I spent a lot of precious time I just didn’t have trying to sort it out. The right thing to do would have been compensation for my time to have been deducted from the amount and worn by either the person or institution that made the mistake. If this ever happens again I will remove the portion I estimate I will be owed, and work with the bank on the remainder. If less of my time is involved than estimated based on previous experience, I will give a refund to be passed on. I would also provide the invoice that accounted for payment for my time as the justification that the amount retained accordingly is not theft.

I think you may find the bank is liable.

Why ? There is a fundamental premise in English law that goes something like "I am not my siblings keeper".

I can guarantee that if banks were to insist on additional checks, there would be a flurry of MN posts about banks "not allowing" people to have access to their money when they wanted it.

Yet lots of posters, me included, have said they've made an error and I can assure you that I wasn't gambling, crack-buying etc., when a man does it it must be suspect! Such misandry.

I always do that as I am paranoid about it going to the wrong account!

People saying it can’t be possible because banks check the name etc now.
Currently Chase is being pushed as the best easy access savings account by moneysavingexpert, lots of people opening an account. It does not verify the name of the bank account holder when you transfer to it as Chase don’t do that. So it is still possible to do.

This! Your husband is an absolute tool for transferring all of your savings to a new account and where presumably the bank checking system didn't verify it was the right account ( not all banks have this service so if I am sending money to a bank that is not verified I transfer just £1 first).
Not to mention being an absolute tool for not checking and double and triple checking he had put the right numbers in.

DH once transferred a few thousand into the wrong account, fortunately the account number that he used didn't exist and so it took a few days for the bank to return the money. He learned his lesson that day and always double checks and triple checks now!

I’m assuming it’s first direct given that their ( from today) regular saver account now pays 3.5% ?
I’ve just opened a current account with them but I can’t open a regular saver with them until I’ve had the account details through the post.
Presumably your DH already has a FD current account? If so then why couldn’t he transfer between the 2 accounts?
If not FD then apologies, heads up to everyone else though, the regular saver is fixed for a year at 3.5% and you can pay in £300 a month - so a couple can open separate accounts and pay in £600 😉

Thanks BorgQueen - handy tip!

I did it years ago in the very early days of online banking, paying my Barclaycard bill in 2000- I had actually put in the right numbers but apparently it had been going to someone's business Barclaycard! It wasn't possible to pay for a personal Barclaycard bill that way and I had clicked on the only but wrong option when I set it up. Only realised when my statement said I hadn't been paying for two months. I cried a bit then contacted Barclaycard, who to their credit (fnar) sorted it out quickly and it was all good.

I did a bank transfer a couple of weeks ago and you have to put the full name of the person in so this doesn't happen. I put the wrong number in to start with because he gave me the wrong last digit, and it bounced.

Oooh, great to know, thanks BorgQueen. Also, for others interested in this, it's probably worth knowing that you can't withdraw from their regular saver accounts for a minimum 12 month period, without closing the Regular Saver altogether. 3.5% is worth doing though, if you know you won't need the money in that 12 month period.

Right, I'm going to get on to FD to see about opening a new Regular Saver account with them.

I don't believe this post is true. Saying now the account doesn't exist and it will bounce back.. if that was the case it would happen straight away. I paid someone £140 I had to put his full name in. He gave me the wrong account number and it bounced straight away. More going on here for sure

We lost about £800 doing the same. Only realised when my partners friend messaged and said that he hadn’t received the money and it was a while down the line. Bank was pretty useless and never got it back. Someone had a nice treat though

I've seen it happen at work and its taken 2 weeks to bounce back.

Why do I think the husband is being a little shady?

maybe because we all use internet banking and all know you actively have to confirm when setting up an entirely new payee at least twice that you definitely have details correct and matches XYZ as being be account they have identified as being the one the details input relate to

so either the husband was transferring ALL their savings whilst also performing brain surgery and was understandably a little distracted or….