Posted on 02/11/2013 7:44:58 AM PST by Responsibility2nd
(Newser) – One click on a keyboard, and Sally Donaldson was sending her money to the wrong person. The British hairdresser says she planned to transfer her monthly pay of about $1,500 to her husband's account, but mis-typed one digit of his account number. The heartbreaker: They only noticed the error two years later, after losing $42,000. And the bank, Nationwide, refuses to return the money, the Guardian reports.
The bank argues that the lucky recipient has already withdrawn the money from ATMs, so getting it back is impossible. And the transfers are hardly the bank's fault. "Phone calls to Nationwide that night, many tears, and numerous subsequent calls and letters, have left us with just £1,000 returned," says Donaldson—which isn't her real name. How she failed to notice the problem for two years is another story. The Guardian partly blames paperless bank statements, which are easier for customers to ignore than snail-mail versions. (An Arkansas couple recently had a much rosier financial tale to tell.)
Correct. But the recipient does. And after acknowledging the error, the bank should facilitate her efforts to get that person to return the money in what amounts to theft. No contract, oral or otherwise exists or existed between the two parties for the legal transfer of funds.
I stopped doing all of my automatic bill payments...yes it’s a little more work to enter in each one individually, but that’s the best way to stay on top of where your money is going.
I was wondering who has that much money, as a working stiff, to where, when you pay the bills, somewhere a check doesn’t bounce in 2 years?
I once did my kid’s taxes by hand.
A few weeks later I got a form letter from the state. It said I had made a mistake....and the refund should not be $34....instead it should be $34,000 (I have terrible handwriting).
The letter said we would get a check for $34k soon. It never came...and neither did the $34 check :(.
I tried automatic bill payment twice. In the first attempt, AOL double tapped my credit card. In the second instance, my mortgage company double tapped my bank account.
Both were a huge hassle to clear up.
I still do electronic bill payment...just not automatic.
And my new bank (USAA) takes it a step further. In no circumstance does my electronic bill payment allow the other bank to debit my account. Rather USAA is actively sending a credit to them...the the point of printing and mailing paper checks if necessary. This way I never give a bank or company a blanket permission to debit the account.
It gives me alot of control.
$1500 in hubby’s account for two years and he never asks her where it is? BS.
I agree.
It wasn’t just 1500 once, it was every month for 24 months.
I have no sympathy if the story is true as reported, and I do not think it is.
Heh, I still write checks and put stamps on the envelopes. I don’t like giving others access to my accounts, even though there isn’t much in them. Just the way I grew up in the 50s, I guess.
Good idea.
But its not just the account number but the routing number, plus name and address when setting up auto pay.
As others have said, this is very fishy.
Once got a letter from the IRS stating that my return wasn’t the amount I gave them (forget the amount ). Instead it should be x, the exact same amount.
I still do the same (write checks and mail them). I could easily do it all on line but I just don’t want to!
This smells like a scam to me.
It’s pretty ridiculous to complain 2 years later.
I know that is true when the bank makes an error which leads to funds going to the wrong account. I don’t think it applies when the customer voluntarily transfers their money to someone else.
It was a bank error, happens all the time.
The band aids and bubble gum holding many of their systems together leaks occasionally.
One very large bank I know was processing unemployment checks for states. Their system had a duplicate process running for about 4 hours. So every deposit and withdrawal happened twice.
Initially the amount of money involved was around $120 million but they managed to recover all but about $3 million.
A bank employee told me 2 years ago, that inside of 10yrs, we’ll all be ***required*** to bank online, OR ELSE. My replay was, or else WHAT? She just smiled. I can now see where that’s going, based upon 0scumbagCare.
It took her two years to figure out the money was missing? Whoa! I thought my ex was sloppy with the banking....
She's definitely qualified to be Treasury Secretary.
Lack of proper internal controls on the bank's part contributed to this error. There should be no way this occurred without confirmation from the bank as to why the name, sort code, and account number wouldn't have matched up properly. There should have been an instantaneous on-screen error message to prevent this.
That being said, to not even check this account for two years is stupid.
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