Getting back a bank transfer?

[TheWitchersWife]

I know the rules and I've been a bit silly.
A business was selling a nice piece of furniture, they have a Facebook and a website but they were selling it through marketplace as it was on sale and reduced. I assume it was for on their for traffic.

They requested a £50 deposit through bank transfer. I was skeptical and said as much but they assured me all was good. I checked their trust pilot and their Facebook for reviews. All very good and lots saying they also paid a deposit through bank transfer.

I paid the money into their business account and got an invoice afterwards.
All previous messaged have been replied to within seconds.
Well, delivery was supposed to take place yesterday. Now all messages are being completely ignored and left on unread. No one came yesterday and I've had no correspondence at all to say it was delayed, cancelled, rescheduled, etc.

I haven't got lots of money and the money was part of my 30th birthday gift off family.
What do I do now? Is there anything I can do?
I know small claims court is £35 as I am so annoyed that I did check. Do I just wave goodbye to the money and wait for the bitter taste to leave?

Also, I read things like this on mumsnet all the time and feel like shouting "OFC IT WAS A SCAM!" it doesn't feel very good being the person on the other side.

You cannot clawback a bank transfer in the way you might with a debit card purchase or you might log a S75 credit card claim, there is no equivalent.

Your only option would be lodging a small claim, perhaps the threat of such would provoke a response? If not you will need to decide whether to follow through.

Hopefully it is a miscommunication and you can get it resolved anyway. Good luck.

I don't think you can sorry. My bank warns me before transferring, I think to cover themselves.

Speak to your banks fraud team. If there is money in the scammers account, the may be able to get it back.

I've just been through a similar process with a company who went into liquidation.

You can't get a bank transfer back in the same way you can get a credit card deposit back.

But if they are supposedly a genuine company with a website it may be worth ringing the bank and speaking to the fraud department to see if they can help.

Have you tried phoning them? It doesn’t scream scam to me at all.

Sounds to me more like someone's been taken Ill or there's been some kind of incident/emergency. I wouldn't jump to a scam decision quite yet.

Give them a couple of days but in the meantime try all methods of contact.

It screams scam to me.

I didn't think it screamed scam either.
It was all very legit with the money going to a business account, having an invoice with logo, company name, address on etc. Seems like a lot of effort for £50.

The silence and lack of delivery is the only reason I'm concerned. If the van broke down or they ran out of time and wanted to deliver another day, I wouldn't even be bothered.

I'm already planning on leaving it a few days before I do anything to give them chance to reply. I might phone the company if I haven't heard anything in a few days.

I did mark it as "business or goods" which in itself makes absolutely no difference because you can't get bank transfers back anyway.