You would have thought that they would have checked their statement at some point within the 2 years. Sounds fishy. But wouldn't you love to have been the recipient.
A woman who paid £26,000 of wages into the wrong bank account over two years has been left unable to get her missing money back - after the recipient spent it.
Hairdresser Sally Donaldson logged onto the joint Nationwide account that she shares with her husband in May 2010 to arrange for £1,000 to be transferred into it from her HSBC business account each month.
But unbeknown to Mrs Donaldson, although she had entered the correct account name and sort code, she had keyed one digit of the account number incorrectly and the money was sent to the wrong person.
Out of pocket: Nationwide customer Sally Donaldson has told how she lost £26,000 by paying her wages into the wrong bank account for two years after typing the wrong account number on her online bank account
It has proved a costly mistake for Mrs Donaldson - she didn't realise that the money was being paid into the wrong account for more than two years, by which time some £26,650 had gone awry.
Unfortunately for Mrs Donaldson, the recipient of the money had spent it and is refusing to pay it back.
The building society says that there is nothing that it can do to retrieve the funds, and they can't even identify the recipient due to data protection laws.
Although Mrs Donaldson is legally entitled to demand the cash back, retrieving it in practice is a more complicated matter.
She told The Guardian: 'Phone calls to Nationwide that night, many tears and numerous subsequent calls and letters, have left us with just £1,000 returned and a complete blank of information from Nationwide.
'We have been reluctant to tell anyone we know about the error, so have dwelled heavily on it ourselves.
'It leaves a sick feeling in my stomach to think someone has been spending all that hard-earned money and I've been going to work – running my own hairdresser's business – when I could have been enjoying a little more time at home with my two sons.'
At a loss: Mrs Donaldson didn't realise that the money was being paid into the wrong account for more than two years as she only receives online statements (file picture)
Mrs Donaldson did not realise that the cash wasn't reaching her and her husband's Nationwide account - the couple only receive online statements, Mrs Donaldson would only check the balance if she went to a cash machine and her husband sorted out all the bills.
Nationwide says that it has never encountered a case of 'mis-applied credit' that went on for so long.
Although legally Nationwide can take funds wrongly attributed to an account back without the account holder's permission up to six years after the error, the building society was unable to take the money back because it had already been withdrawn.
The building society says that they cannot tell if the funds were transferred to another account - the recipient withdrew the cash from ATMs.
Powerless: Nationwide says that it is unable to retrieve Mrs Donaldson's money as the recipient has spent it and is unwilling to reimburse her the money itself
Neither it nor HSBC are willing to reimburse Mrs Donaldson as the mistake was down to customer error and they say that it could encourage fraud if they begin to pay back customers who transfer money to the wrong account.
Her family has been hit particularly hard by the loss of the money - her and her husband, a public sector worker, earn less than £50,000 a year between them and live in a modest semi-detached house.
The couple ended up going overdrawn for a period because they struggled without her income.
Taking her case to the Financial Services Ombudsman, the body which regulates banks and building societies might not help Mrs Donaldson's case either - it can only make a ruling if the bank has made a mistake and has no powers to get the money back from the other account holder.
Although the body says that it receives around 100 complaints about mis-applied credit each year, they are mostly from people who have wrongly been credited extra funds and believe that they should be able to keep the money.
Unfortunately for them, the law does not entitle them to a penny.
Comments
Surely if the sort code and account name don't match the account number then the transfer should not have been set up in the first place? To me, that seems like an error by Nationwide and they should reimburse.
You can put in anything really when transferring cash - certainly a flaw.
If you were a millionaire then fair enough but that's a years wages for her
It is all based on the sort code / account number.
Just as when you put in name and address when enterign card details, as the long as the total numbers entered equal the total of the numbers in your address including post code it will usually accept the instructions.
Criminal proceedings would (rightly) been threatened if not instigated if it had been benefits that had been claimed/ kept incorrectly.
Obviously it's mainly her fault but the banks system must surely hold some responsibilty
I held on to it for a couple of days just to make them sweat but then paid it back.
There must be more to this though. Even if she was earning £25k pa, most people would notice within a few days of the month end that half of her esarnings were going missing!!
I've often wondered what would happen when I pay myself each month if I messed up with the recipient details (me). I think I know the answer now.
There were, back in the day, plausibility checks on bank account numbers based on, say, Modulus 11. I wonder if that system has gone by the board? If not, it stood a good chance of protecting this customer as it would have been unlikely that she could have mistakenly chosen another account number which would have actually have existed.
Probably within a hairs bredth of apprehending someone.
And if the matter came to court, then the recipient would be disclosed and charged.
If it is perhaps a scam by our hairdresser friend to 'lose' the money, into another account (perhaps to avoid tax). Fraud.
Or it might just be a cock-up. Sh!t happens.