Payment sent to wrong account

[RippleEffects]

I'm a new small business. I've received a letter from a company I recently started buying goods from advising my payment 'may be lost or rejected' as they've changed their bank details. My bank say its cleared so its either in their receipt or lost.

They advised me in March to now use account abc.

In May they sent me a statement that advised use XYZ.

I used account XYZ.

The letter has frustratingly arrived on a Saturday and says that ABC was the correct account, so I can't phone them and has an irritating lack of information i.e. you may have lost.

If the payment is lost, its about three months profits to me (not that that affects the legalities), who is in the wrong?

Surely if account abc is still in use they'll have it and can transfer it themselves to account xyz but if they closed account abc so only account xyz is in use then it would have bounced back.

I closed one business account and opened another (that didn't charge extortionate monthly charges) and sometimes old clients who held my old account details accidentally send to closed one and it bounces back to them. As it's cleared I would be a bit suspicious but don't know which bank you use or they use.

That makes sense.

I think, now I'm calming down and rationalising this, they've had the payment and are just irritated its gone to the old account. I can't believe it could just be lost.

I wonder if they don't realise they're still sending out the old payment details as part of the pre-formatted bit of their monthly statements.

I had this a few weeks ago, paid a load of invoices then realised they'd gone to an old account number.

My bank said the payment would either bounce back straight away, or if the company had set up a transfer service the payment would be redirected automatically to the new account.

In the end it turned out it had been redirected, so alls we'll that ends well.

I'd go back to the company and ask them to confirm they've used a transfer service and the payment has been received.

Check it's not a scam letter.

Here's an example from Nat West about how those sorts of scams work: www.business.natwest.com/business/natwest-business-bankingsupportcentre/fraud-and-security-advice/common-scams/change-of-bank-details-scams.html

Glad to heat it can happen to more experienced people too.

I hadn't even thought of scam - that's scary reading.

I guess I'll have to wait until Monday to ensure its been paid to the right place.

Surely if they gave you information with the old account on it is their fault