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 started another thread the other day as I thought money I'd transferred to my mortgage account had gone missing.

Nationwide just give you an account number and sort code to transfer, not a name. I've tried "nationwide" and it always comes up as an unconfirmed account and do I still want to proceed at my own risk? So some banks do let you override this (Natwest). I panicked so much the first time I transferred, thinking it was somehow dodgy or I'd got some numbers muddled up!

They allow you to overide. I too am with NatWest
but you have to explicitly confirm that the details you have match what is in the screen and has not been identified at matching

but this account didn’t even exist. So that would have been flagged

I always do this even though my banking app now verifies if the account name, sort code and account number match!!

You always transfer all your life savings into accounts that don’t exist?

I once tried to pay a builder £9k via online banking. Even though his name and account number etc matched, I had to ring my bank and ask them to put the payment through, bit embarrassing in front of the builder saying the money wont go through to your account, but good really that the bank were sort off checking a large amount leaving my account

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

"All" of us ?

Maybe not "all" of us who deal with bank transfers daily and know that not all banks are able to verify payee details.

If someone mistakenly pays money into your account it is theft to keep it. The crime is "dishonestly retaining a wrongful credit," from the Theft Act 1968. The dishonest element comes from whether it would be reasonable for the recipient to notice this money appear and believe they had no right to it. I once had money paid into an account I no longer used so it was reasonable that I didn't notice. Getting £10k paid into the account I use regularly would be hard to prove I acted reasonably.

However, that doesn't mean it will be simple getting it back. The police are unlikely to be interested and you don't have the persons details. You would probably have to deal with it on a civil basis and start by taking the bank to court to establish who the other account holder is.

In this case if it has not gone to a person it should be in a holding account at the other bank and returned soon. Still nail biting to wait though!

I was mainly replying to the earlier posters who were saying if the details didn't match then the bank would block the transfer. But if non-existent account I'm sure it would flag!

Similar happened to me. I had set up an account on our credit union account and 1 number was incorrect. I transferred £1000 and when it didn't show in our account I realised the mistake. As there was no account with that name the money came back into the account, I think it took around a week.

If someone mistakenly pays money into your account it is theft to keep it. The crime is "dishonestly retaining a wrongful credit," from the Theft Act 1968.

You really shouldn't dabble in areas that aren't your forte. You end up missing the important bits (or is that why you didn't post the link ?) which is:

Wrongful
A credit is wrongful if it derives from theft, blackmail, fraud or stolen goods.

www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/theft-act-offences

Just mixing up numbers or accounts does not make a payment wrongful. And as we have already decided, the original payment into the recipients account doesn't have the intent necessary for theft.

I have a fairly new savings account which doesn’t have the electronic check thing set up with my bank. My bank warns me to triple check because of this so I sent a little, then a little more and basically transferred my savings in installments. I still check the number on the account before sending anymore money even now. It’s stressful but the interest rate is good!

I had a similar thing when my inheritance came through from my granddad - it was a huge sum, enough to pay off our mortgage. And I somehow gave my dad my savings account number with two digits transposed and realised this on a Friday afternoon.

My brother didn't help matters by ringing me and saying he'd heard if it goes to a real account you can't compel them to return it to you and he'd heard about all these cases where people lost their money forever because the other person didn't want to give it back. This was literally about 3 months before name checks came in... fortunately my dad told me that the solicitor said usually the money bounces back as it's rare for a bank to have two such similar account numbers and the majority of the time the money reappears, which set my mind at rest a bit. Luckily it bounced back on the Monday. All my accounts now check the name! But yeah, that was a sharp intake of breath right there.

.

A bit late now but I always send a small rest transfer before sending larger sums to new accounts.
I'm sure there are ways to recover the money through the banking system. Especially if it was noticed fairly quickly.

It sounds like you may get your money back. Hopefully your husband will learn a few I let’s not lessons.

1. check and double check bank details
2. don’t ignore all the warnings that will have popped up telling him that the account details don’t match
3. make a small deposit of £1 to ensure that the money is ending up in the account you expected it to

What bank are you with op? Most banks, it's a hassle to set up a new transfer, confirming all details, and will flag if details are incorrect
It seems very strange that your dh would transfer a large amount of money into a new account without double and triple checking he'd put the right details in, he must be very stupid or he's lying to you, I know that sounds harsh, but really, how careless can you get!!
Glad it's not went to an active account though ,so you should get your money back ok.

Why?

Did you think it was somehow going to go wrong in between transfers

Hi , hopefully you will get it back. When I forwarded money to a new payee I always send £1 first , the account them saves in my payee list . I'm so paranoid I will put a number in wrong.

Don't just send a pound or a fiver. Send an odd amount like 1.42 so that it is instantly clearly recognisable

That sounds like your energy rebate from your Council - they're coming through now.

This happened to me, I borrowed more than I needed on my mortgage and the solicitor sent the extra money to the wrong account. They had misread my dhs handwriting.

thankfully it just went into banking land and got sorted in a day or two, but it was extremely stressful not knowing where more than 20k of our money was!

when I tried to transfer money to a business the money would not go through until I got the name and the account number correct.

When I got it wrong I was prompted to check and try again.
I thought that was the protocol now.

Glad it’s being sorted got you though

I really hope you get this sorted what a nightmare 🥹

Oh right @IcedOatLatte I should have just said forget about it you are never going to get your money back???? Did you RTFT where lots of people had similar situations and got their money or are you just picking on my post because I mention the word faith. Did you tell OP they had no chance of getting their money back????