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!

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-stoke-staffordshire-28787266

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-522549/Four-family-members-jailed-135-000-spending-spree-bank-error.html

Yet people are still prosecuted under the Theft Act when money is paid in error?

Do you not understand what the word will means? Your comment "It will eventually be returned" is simply wrong

I and others have pointed out that it is by no means certain that someone gets their money back in these situations. That doesn't mean that the OP won't, it's a factual observation, no more no less.

Logic and correct use of words not your strong point?

But OP has said she now knows the incorrect account number doesn't exist, it's not on someone else's account. She will get her money back.

The bank have a duty of care to ensure the details of the account match up with the details of the person it's registered too. So the fact the payment has gone through is a fault I'd the bank. When I put in the wrong details when transferring to a friend I got an error message saying "The details of this account do not match that of the person listed on the account. Please check you have entered the details correctly before proceeding" if you still proceed them your liable but if you had no warning the bank are.

Once money was mistakenly put in my brothers account. He had already spent it by the time it was noticed. The bank made him pay it back in installments.

I have to admit as I'm dyslexic I worry about doing this all the time.😱

Did he do the transfer through a banking app or online? If he did, did the App/website check the account was correct or is it with a bank it couldn't check? If the App/website said it was OK, then the bank may have to cover it if they don't recover the money. He must be beside himself. 😖

Hope that whoever it's gone too are honest and the money will come back. Best of luck 🙏🙏🙏

A friend of mine suddenly received a large sum in her bank account one day from an unknown account. She called the bank but they weren't able to reverse the transaction back to the bank it came from and they couldn't give my friend the details for data protection or some other reason so my friend still has the money in her bank untouched.
Fingers crossed you'll get it back

I tend to transfer a small amount first and then transact the large amount when I know it has gone to the right account that is because I am sure I am number blind 😊hope all is good for you x

I am really paranoid about doing this so what I do is send a small amount say £1, confirm it's gone to the right account and then go back in and send the rest. I know it won't help now but might help avoid it happening in the future. I hope you get it back OP.

My bank, Santander, like many other banks, carries out numerous checks and gives plenty of warnings at each stage of the process of paying into another account at a different bank.

Nowadays when you type in the name of the payees bank account, it has to exactly match the bank account number and sort code. Any discrepancy eg name does not match the account number (which is what you're saying your DH has done), stops you from continuing the transaction. It's been designed that way to stop errors like that from happening, because of the risks to account holder and the bank.

just wondering how what you've described could happen with modern online banking, with all those checks and balances in place.

which bank are you with?

Honestly, you should change banks because most have checks and balances in place to make sure this can't happen ie they cross-check the bank account details to ensure it's the correct name and ask you to confirm at least twice. If your bank didn't do that then switch to one that does.
I'm with a few different banks (for business and personal) and they all automatically check the account details are correct. If the figures are transposed, it won't process the transfer.
Last week, a tradesman had put the wrong details on their invoice to us. When I tried to pay, the bank flagged that the details were incorrect and I couldn't make a transfer.

I just did a chaps transfer from my bank to my sons for over 150k
it took at least 20 mins to do as it had to be checked by a senior member of staff ID and other stuff checked at least twice and photocopied
this was from tsb to hsbc

My other bank Lloyds will still let you transfer the money as long as you confirm it’s correct even when the names don’t match exactly

This happened to us but with our rent payment. Our landlord changed banks and dp wanted to pay rent from his account this time but he mixed up 2 numbers. We had no clue until the landlord called me.

It took a month to sort with constant chasing of the bank. We were told that it would take 2-3 working days for days bank to contact the bank of the person the money went to who then had 2-3 working days to contact their customer.

We were also told that if the person who got the money said it was a genuine transaction/transfer then they had 21 days to prove it. We were then told that if that person had spent our money, we had to wait til there was money in their account as their bank couldn't put them into debt which I think is shocking if they've spent money they know isn't theirs. That was the most stressful part. We were lucky that we put the reference for the payment as rent and our street name so unless that person rented out a property on our street, they didn't really have a leg to stand on.

My partner has transferred money to me on a few occasions since with the same bank and we've had to go through the process a few times and they couldn't tell us why dp's money was being transferred to random accounts/going missing.

He's now changed banks but it's a horrible situation to be in... hope you get it back ASAP. As long as you used a good reference for the transfer, hopefully the person who got the money isn't able to convince their bank the payment to them is genuine.

Also... sorry if this has been sorted now. Only read so far then dog went nuts at the door.

The six largest banks are all signed up to Confirmation of Payee and some of the internet banks are signed up to it too.
If OP's DH has managed to find a bank that doesn't use that system, then OP should be moving their accounts to a bank that does use it.

I have done this to a non-existent International bank account. It eventually bounced back - it took a week - and that was without a recall request.

For those saying that there is a check that the payee name and account matches - as not all banks have signed up for this, depending on who you bank with and where the recipient account is. Both banks need to have signed up for the service for it fully work.

And as others have said, it is not the banks fault if the customer has made the error (as in this case).

When someone was transferring a large amount of money to me I said 'For god's sake send me £1 first, then send the rest once I've confirmed it has arrived safely.' I mean you take care but there are ways of minimising errors.

This. My bank tells me the name on the account and warns me if the name I have typed and the name on the account do not match.

It could give rise to a claim for unjustified enrichment, on the grounds that the payee has been enriched at the payer's expense, the payee's retention of the enrichment being unjust. You'd have to know who the payee is, and raise a court action though.

Thank god your story had a happy ending. I'd hope that even if the account existed, the owner would happily return your money, it's the right thing to do. I couldn't be able to live with myself if random money appeared into my account...

If your bank didn't have the newish measure where it checks the name on the account matches... I'd be getting a new bank after this. No reason to keep a dinosaur bank.

My bank is like so on it its crazy. I had to pay my landscaper £8k and because they are using a third party provider that wasnt listed they couldn't verify the name and account. I sent £200 through to test it worked and it did. Then I tried to said the remaining amount and as it was large I had to call the scam preventation team and talk to them and verify it was legit. I had to call my lanscaper to had it on record that he confirmed the details are legit. Then I finally put it through via my banking app and then the fraud team stopped the payment and I had to talk to them.

In September 2016 my son's student loans were put into someone else's account. Student Finance said we'd provided wrong account details. They tried to recall the money but the account holder had moved/spent it. They said because we'd given the wrong account info it was our fault and that they wouldn't be sending replacement funds but he'd still have to repay the loan.
We proved that we'd given the correct information as I'd kept screen shots of everything we'd submitted.
An investigation was opened in November 2016 and eventually, 8 months after he should have had the funds, they eventually found in our favour and sent him the cash to the correct account.
This was a MAJOR ball-ache coz I don't work and he really needed those funds in the September, not the following May when his university year was practically over.
It was lucky that we were able to get a loan to cover his expenses. We applied to Student Finance for them to pay the interest we'd had to pay on the loan due to their mistake, we've only just got that back from them after over 5yrs.

It doesn't "fail" just due to not matching. It warns you and you can sidestep it - I've just done it this evening because an account I send money to has a slightly different name to the one I typed in, but I know it's the right account. You just click "continue anyway".

The odd thing though is that a) if he got the sort code right there wouldn't be another bank in the mix, b) he'd just opened the account he was transferring to, how could he not notice the name didn't match, it should have been his own name.

He got it back: https://www.theguardian.com/money/2019/dec/14/man-handed-193000-in-sort-code-error-says-he-tried-to-give-it-back?CMP=ShareiOSAppp_Other