I paid the wrong Bank Account, what can I do

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Forums › Finance and wealth management › I paid the wrong Bank Account, what can I do - advice wanted?

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Awrrr
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#1728158 1-Mar-2017 09:56

michaelmurfy:

This looks to be a direct credit recovery to me... There is strict guidelines to follow in the world of banking when it comes to this sort of thing and a very specific team who handles it - I'll tell you now if this was a regular staff member who phoned up the company it can be grounds for dismissal due to serious misconduct. The processes are there to protect against privacy, fraud and many other regulatory requirements as outlined by the reserve bank.

So @lNomNoml it isn't shocking, it is to protect customers from things I can't specifically talk about however customers will never see it this way. There is a reason for everything even if it doesn't make logical sense.

Anyway good to see a direct credit recovery resolved it in the end.

With all of that in mind, could the banks still not have a mechanism for this kind of situation? With the best will in the world, people do make mistakes. This is the kind of mistake that can happen all too easily, and as someone here pointed out, customers are not the only ones who can make it. Even Geekzone has 2-factor authentication. Surely banks could do the same for transfers. Why is it so difficult to just verify that the account holder name matches the account number?

Plesse igmore amd axxept applogies in adbance fir anu typos

DravidDavid

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#1728178 1-Mar-2017 10:24

Glad it all got resolved! I had a similar incident a few years ago where my partner deposited in to the correct account number with an invalid suffix. Luckily the money left the account and came right back the next morning. But ever since I've been ultra careful about direct bank transfers and double checking. If I get the bank number by text, I usually tell the person that if it's wrong, it's on them!

trig42

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#1728197 1-Mar-2017 10:49

DravidDavid:

Glad it all got resolved! I had a similar incident a few years ago where my partner deposited in to the correct account number with an invalid suffix. Luckily the money left the account and came right back the next morning. But ever since I've been ultra careful about direct bank transfers and double checking. If I get the bank number by text, I usually tell the person that if it's wrong, it's on them!

Kiwibank's iOS app has a handy feature that copies the account name and number into the clipboard of the phone for exactly this reason. Very handy if I need to text my account number to someone..

harlansmart

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#1728208 1-Mar-2017 11:14

We'd contacted both banks directly, both on the phone, via email to personal contacts at both banks & also in person to both banks. Both banks knew we were making 1c deposits with special contact details in the reference fields etc Both banks knew we had a thread here. We did not chose 'Direct Credit Recovery' which had no guarantees of success, and a fee almost as great as the $125 that was missing.

PaulBags: I thought you were trying to contact the business directly, but this looks like the bank sorted it? So did they charge a fee in the end?

'Direct Credit Recovery’ was not requested. The BNZ would have had to have performed this, officially contacting ANZ whatnot. With 'Direct Credit Recovery there is ‘No Guarantee’ of a successful result. BNZ charge NZD75. 'Direct Credit Recovery’. That (could) have been throwing another NZD75 of ‘good money’ after bad. As a very very last resort, 'Direct Credit Recovery’ might have been actioned however it is very good this point was not reached i.e. 'Pay us $75 and only then we might or might not get back the $125'.

Frankly, 'Direct Credit Recovery’ felt like a bit of a 'hold-up' - ANZ already had all information available to them, that the BNZ could have ever supplied them in 'Direct Credit Recovery'. BNZ had all the information as we had been into the BNZ, with our computer, and had supplied them all of the information as we had it, screen grabs, names and numbers & identifications whatnot, after-all, we are here, too, both ANZ & BNZ Business Account Holders, and had visited our 0193 Newmarket Branch, where the $125 was apparently 'missing'.

michaelmurfy:This looks to be a direct credit recovery to me... There is strict guidelines to follow in the world of banking when it comes to this sort of thing and a very specific team who handles it - I'll tell you now if this was a regular staff member who phoned up the company it can be grounds for dismissal due to serious misconduct. The processes are there to protect against privacy, fraud and many other regulatory requirements as outlined by the reserve bank.

So @lNomNoml it isn't shocking, it is to protect customers from things I can't specifically talk about however customers will never see it this way. There is a reason for everything even if it doesn't make logical sense.

Anyway good to see a direct credit recovery resolved it in the end.

- We had made multiple 1c deposits to the erroneous account, with our details in the reference.

- Just before I received the email from BNZ the 2 account holders making the deposits received 'Blocked Calls', I haven't asked but possibly also the account holder the money was supposed to go to received a blocked call too.

- Personal contacts, one at very highest levels of operations at BNZ were aware of our situation and the thread.

- A 1c deposit was only possible from within the Newmarket 0193 bank, it was not possible to make they 1c deposit from another ANZ branch. It wasn't possible to pay the erroneous account unless one did an over the counter transaction from within the Newmarket 0193 Branch, what does this suggest, possibly the erroneous account where the $125 mistakingly went to was a ANZ Internal account not a ordinary account like members of the public have?

- Being curious, as to exactly, what forces precisely brought about the sucess we've asked for an explanation & will update here

kiwifidget

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#1728219 1-Mar-2017 11:45

Interesting parallel in todays news where a woman in England got charged with theft after picking up and keeping GBP20 she found on the ground.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=11809625

It would seem if you erroneously receive money that's OK, but if you keep it, that's theft.

Delete cookies?! Are you insane?!

Pumpedd

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#1728230 1-Mar-2017 12:07

This has to happen a lot...I know I have often got it wrong until my check picks up my error before I complete transaction..especially on smartphone keyboards.

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joff_nz

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#1728255 1-Mar-2017 12:31

Wow, it's not often I feel bad for banks but it seems like you've wasted more than $125 of their time to fix your mistake, instead of you following the proper process.

tchart

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#1728264 1-Mar-2017 12:49

joff_nz:
Wow, it's not often I feel bad for banks but it seems like you've wasted more than $125 of their time to fix your mistake, instead of you following the proper process.

Cost of business.

While they are not there to do you favours they offer a service for which we pay through interest or fees (eg setting up a new mortgage). I would see resolving this bad deposit as BAU. Seriously it would take someone 5 or 10 minutes to sort out.

joff_nz

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#1728266 1-Mar-2017 12:52

Not really a 'Cost of business' if it's a chargeable service.

tchart

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#1728273 1-Mar-2017 13:04

joff_nz: Not really a 'Cost of business' if it's a chargeable service.

Yes but what I'm saying is that it shouldn't be a chargeable service unless it's needs to be escalated (eg if it was a large sum or the other bank isn't cooperating).

It should've gone like this;

Client->Bank A I've made a deposit into an incorrect account,OK
Bank A->Bank B We've got a customer who made a bad deposit can you check with your customer,OK
Bank B->Bank A Ok we've spoken to them and they are happy, we'll reverse the deposit, THX
Bank A->Client Sorted, THX

High fives all round!

$125 is a lot of money for some people. It's not ethical to charge $75 to recover said money if it was put in the wrong account.

floydbloke

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#1728284 1-Mar-2017 13:18

joff_nz: Not really a 'Cost of business' if it's a chargeable service.

Is that you, Anthony Healy?

Sometimes I use big words I don't always fully understand in an effort to make myself sound more photosynthesis.

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joff_nz

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#1728292 1-Mar-2017 13:29

floydbloke:

joff_nz: Not really a 'Cost of business' if it's a chargeable service.

Is that you, Anthony Healy?

If only I had his resources

Wheelbarrow01

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Chorus

#1728293 1-Mar-2017 13:33

I know of a horror story which i think I commented about on GZ at the time it happened. My work colleague was renting off friends of hers and due to some extremely poor accounting on their friends' part, they never checked that rent was being received (for about 18 months from memory). When they finally did realise that they had received no rent, my colleague called their bank to find that their rent money had been going to a similar bank account number, but with two of the numbers transposed around the wrong way.

Subsequent investigations revealed that the recipient was a beneficiary who, once the windfall was discovered, would go to the ATM every day the rent was deposited, and would withdraw all of it immediately. It did end up at court where the beneficiary was ordered to pay it back at $10 a week. The money had been squandered so there was no other way to recover the debt.

My colleague had to take out a personal loan to pay their friend/landlord back immediately (around $20k from memory), and the $10/week being paid by the recipient doesn't even cover the interest the victim is paying on the loan. It will only take 45 years for my colleague to get her money back in full (minus interest costs).

A harsh lesson. The landlord should have some culpability here. Surely they should have noticed a lot sooner - at tax time for starters....

joff_nz

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#1728295 1-Mar-2017 13:35

tchart:
joff_nz: Not really a 'Cost of business' if it's a chargeable service.

Yes but what I'm saying is that it shouldn't be a chargeable service unless it's needs to be escalated (eg if it was a large sum or the other bank isn't cooperating).

It should've gone like this;

Client->Bank A I've made a deposit into an incorrect account,OK
Bank A->Bank B We've got a customer who made a bad deposit can you check with your customer,OK
Bank B->Bank A Ok we've spoken to them and they are happy, we'll reverse the deposit, THX
Bank A->Client Sorted, THX

High fives all round!

$125 is a lot of money for some people. It's not ethical to charge $75 to recover said money if it was put in the wrong account.

I see what you're saying, but I think you're underestimating the effort.

Have you ever worked in a role where you have to make outbound calls to customers not expecting your contact? I have, and it's labour intensive - the last project I was involved in had success rates of around 1 in 3 that actually answered. There's also an amount of record keeping to be done, audit controls, all this stuff takes time. There's also the risk the banks take of getting involved in disputes. If the receiver said they were supposed to receive that money, what then?

The banks in this case have a process, with important and defined controls, which cost time (money). They have a set charge for this time, and I find it painful when people will happily use someone else's time (money) instead of paying the cost of their own mistake.

Edit; I'll probably not reply to this thread past here, I have my own rules about disagreements on the internet & have probably broken them already.

tchart

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#1728316 1-Mar-2017 13:47

joff_nz:

Edit; I'll probably not reply to this thread past here, I have my own rules about disagreements on the internet & have probably broken them already.

@joff_nz, apologies, I'm not trying to start an argument, I get your point. I think the fundamental flaw here is with the banks and the fact that there are no check and balances between account name/number (which has been brought up in the thread).

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