HMRC taken money!

[Moleinacoma]

I'm in a bit of a panic and wonder if anyone has experienced similar? I noticed last night a payment for a LOT of money had gone from my current account, listed as self assessment payment to HMRC Cumbernauld. I do not owe money to HMRC, have had no communication from them...so rang my bank straight away. Their fraud department has been looking into it for 24 hours and I've had no update. I'm feeling sick with the worry. I'm hoping I haven't somehow been hacked, but has anyone ever heard of or experienced HMRC mistakenly taking money from the wrong bank account please?

I didn't know they could take payments. Normally if you are self-employed you pay them. do you know if HMRC have your bank details? If you are working for a company I don't imagine they do.

I've just looked at my payment, I'm self-employed. It says HMRC accounts of... and then it's my unique code. Although I made the payment to HMRC Cumbernauld, Cumbernauld does not show on the bank statement. Basically it's like if you paid TSB in Kensington branch, then it would show up as TSB but not as Kensington.

If you are registered for self assessment could it be a payment on account for next year? When you submit your return though, it would show your figure before you commit to submitting.

Thanks for replies...I haven't been self employed for 15 years, and have changed banks since then, but know 100 pc I have no outstanding debt. It showed on my banking app as self ass cumb and then a number with a k. I can't check exactly as I asked the bank to put a stop on my account and debit card and so can't currently access my account online to see what code exactly was listed

I haven't submitted a return as work Paye

Is the reference number your UTR from when you did send assessments previously? ... unique taxpayer reference number?

O sorry, see now that you can't check. Does sound weird...I always have to actively make payments to HMRC, they've never taken money from my account.

There is a thing now where you can authorise them to take payments from your account. Perhaps someone has deliberately or accidentally used your details. The number ending in K would be their utr so the bank/hmrc should be able to sort it.

Many frauds around fictitious HMRC/Govt payment details. When I recently (genuinely) tried to make some back payments for missing National Insurance years, I had to jump through numerous security checks with my bank to enable my payments to be made. My bank told me they are very suspicious of any payments purporting to go to HMRC accounts and have stops automatically set to avoid payments going out without checking first.

Some of my son’s friends have had their accounts emptied in the past by fraudsters obtaining bank account details by claiming to be HMRC giving tax refunds - they were all junior doctors, email addresses taken through a mass stolen data breach. They did all eventually get their money back from their banks.

Oh I do hope so! I'm losing sleep over this!

My bank (Santander) actually froze my account when I was making the genuine largish payments of missing National Insurance years!

But if you are genuinely paying the HMRC bank account then they shouldn't stop payments. Surely they know the sort code and account number for HMRC at the bank?

Although a different situation (but also HMRC mentioned), your thread made me recall reading this thread over on Gransnet yesterday .

Did you pay anybody from your banking app this past few days and notice anything similar to the Gransnet thread?

You would think so wouldn’t you? But no, when trying to sort out my payments they had to manually check I was paying a real HMRC account and let my payment go through and unfroze my account. It took 3 days to sort out!

Apparently lots of different genuine HMRC for different types of Tax revenues and they are often changing.

You can just call hmrc and ask them directly too

Good luck getting through. It takes hours/days to get through to speak to a real person.

If you call them ring at 8am or whatever time they very first open. You get through quicker first thing.

Thanks all, I'm just waiting on hearing back from fraud dept before calling HMRC....it's so horrible hearing about other people here who have been scammed too...it feels like such a violation doesn't it?

@Moleinacoma I couldn't wait, I'd just ring HMRC.

I wouldn't wait around

Call HMRC for the quickest answer and take it from there.

Just call HMRC. They are very helpful on the phone.

I spent an hour on the phone to the bank yesterday and finally got it sorted. It wasn't HMRC, it was a human error by the bank! Honestly I was so relieved I cried. They gave me £150 compensation for which I am grateful, but it was a horrid 48 hours.

Glad it's sorted but wonder how the error came about. Could have serious consequences for many, I mean in terms of unexpected money leaving your account.

"
Good luck getting through. It takes hours/days to get through to speak to a real person."

Took me one hour and 11 mins a couple of weeks ago.