Advice for recovering lost money

[JustMeTyping]

Has anyone else had a bank 'lose' a money transfer and then do absolutely nothing to help return the funds?

Also sold a camera and some accessories in March.....'reputable' company has still not paid up.

Neither the Financial Ombudsmen nor a credit recovery company have done anything.

Am getting desperate now......any advice gratefully received!

What exactly has the Financial Ombudsman said?

Just to add.....have completed the online paperwork for the small claims court. Does anyone have any idea this process takes in these Covid times?

That they were too inundated to deal with it....we then turned to a credit recovery company but no action and no returning requests for updates.

That doesn't sound right - Ombudsman website says they are still dealing with complaints, but taking longer. I'd go back to the Ombudsman with regard to your bank losing the money transfer.

You'd only have the ability to go to the ombudsman of the bank had issued you a final response to a complaint. So what was the bank's response? Sounds like there's more to this than what you've said initially.

if the bank, not of the bank

Thanks WitchesSpelleas for your advice......will try.

I guess I'm at the end of my tether as we have just left a European neighbour with a similar experience. There we took the bank to court (and won) but the bank has still not returned our money and there seems to be no mechanism to enforce the court decision.

I must have some pretty bad karma from previous lives.....

Your OP is quite unclear.

Are you saying you transferred money between your own accounts or transferred to someone else and it never arrived?

Is the money with the bank, or is it sitting in someone else's bank account? It can be notoriously difficult to get the funds back if they are with another individual rather than a bank holding account:

www.theguardian.com/money/2019/dec/07/i-lost-my-193000-inheritance-with-one-wrong-digit-on-my-sort-code

Unfortunately HotGlueGun there is not more to it....we couldn't get any final answers from the bank, which was why we referred to the Ombudsmen.
Nothing sinister on my side I'm afraid....just facing a very difficult time ahead and needed some advice.

Op... can you give us more details please? It doesn't seem to stack up completely? Are you sure that the bank really has lost the money?

Have you looked at Money Saving Expert - seem to be quite a few threads there about this kind of issue?

Sorry... cross post. Think we still need more details though. What was the transfer? How much for (roughly)? Was it to a 3rd party account? Have you done a "track and trace" on the payment?

Transfer was from our own UK account to our account in another EU country.
Never arrived.....trace (from the credit recovery company) revealed it is in the UK bank but not our account.

If we could get communication from any of the agencies involved that would help thus me turning to MN. Onwards and upwards....

Thanks for tip about Money Saving Expert......will check now

Could it have been stopped for possible fraud/ money laundering checks? If it's still in the UK bank then it will be sat on a suspense account somewhere. I can't see any logical reason why they would hold on to it, unless there was concern about it in some way. How much was the transfer?

Also, when did you make the payment and by what method?

Believe me, I share the incredulous comments about 'it can't be right',....I've spent months banging my head against brick walls.
Transfer was done via mobile app (have all records of that, shared with bank, etc) for 800 euros - it just never showed up.
Countless calls to customer helplines, etc.....I just can't give up, I really need the money.

Thanks to all who have taken the time to post responses - I'm going to stop now (no sleep, lots of tears...)

If you have a CCJ against the bank, then you can apply to the court to enforce the order. Do you have a CCJ?

www.gov.uk/make-court-claim-for-money/enforce-a-judgment

I'm sorry you've had to go through this... it sounds like a nightmare. In my experience, a strongly worded letter of complaint made to someone senior should resolve this. Seems crazy that they are not helping you.

Is it you or your European neighbour that has got a CCJ?

Has the bank given a final response to your complaint, what is their explanation?

News just in.....
Had message that the small claims court will be processing our application this week - hurrah
I went back and double-checked: no final confirmation was ever received from the bank, they just stopped responding our communication channels.
Fingers crossed....

The Dutch bank has now had 2 court decisions against them....no way of enforcing it though. That was for a massive 16,000 euros. Would have lost the house if we hadn't been able to sell it last December.As it was we made a loss; still trying to recover financially from it sadly