International Transfer Gone Wrong - Advice required

[hattrick_12a]

Hi there folks,

I am an expat working and living in New Zealand. I recently tried an International Transfer to my irish account and had the below experience, which I have posted on some NZ forums. But it might be of interest here and there might be some advice I can get from here also, as I think this is a very food site.

Basically I made an international transfer from my New Zealand bank account to my European account. I made it from the branch on the Tuesday (12th Oct). I checked my NZ bank account online on the Thursday (16th Oct) and notice that the money was transferred back into my account with a substantial loss compared to the original NZ Dollar transfer.

The reason for this substantial loss is that the NZ Dollar was transferred to my euro account, in Euros, and on receipt of this the euro bank converted the Euros back to NZ Dollar and sent it back to my NZ account. Now the reason it turns out this happened is that the European banks introduced that some transfer code be alongside this transfer (i.e. the transfer I made included my back account number and name and (euro) address, my European bank name and address). So that is why the money was returned to my NZ account. This is what my NZ bank is saying.

Now I have asked for refund of the difference that I have lost, as I do not feel this was my mistake. But my NZ bank is saying that it is not their fault, as they try and keep up to date with all these type of details and that they were not informed by the euro bank of such details. They are saying that I should try and get my loss back from my euro bank.

I hope I have explained this as best as possible. I really feel this is the NZ banks responsibility, so they should refund me and if it is the euro banks fault, then the NZ bank should still refund me and look for the money back from the euro bank.

Now what is my best form of action? I still have to contact the euro bank to see what there take is on this. I have done a transfer like this before, providing the same destination details, but I done this online whereas this time I done it in there branch. The loss is about 300-400NZD. Are there any consumer protection agencies, financial regulator, or other type body that can help?

Thanks

 

[mathepac]

I'm not sure I understand what you tried to do or what advice if any the NZ bank gave you, but as far as I can establish, New Zealand does not participate in the International Bank Account Numbering (IBAN) and remittance system (nor do Australia, Japan, USA, etc). Consequently I don't know how you initiated an international transfer or what the New Zealand bank thought would happen upon receipt of whatever the transaction was in Ireland.

I believe you will have to do something safe and mundane like buy a Euro bank-draft (cashier's cheque) using NZ$ in NZ and post it to your bank in Ireland with a deposit slip / covering letter.

If I want to pay my ESB bill from an Irish bank account, I transfer money to Account number 81900087, Sort code 93-20-86, filling in those details and an amount of money on a paper deposit slip (or internet transfer from my computer).

If however, I want to pay my ESB bill from one of my many Lichtenstein bank accounts, I must specify the details as follows "IE36 AIBK 9320 8681 9000 87", this being the IBAN version of the original transaction details, including, country, abbreviated bank name, check digits, Sort code and Account number - this will work as I've done it many times .

To the best of my knowledge you do not have a corresponding facility from NZ as they don't participate in the IBAN scheme.

You can calculate your own Irish account IBAN number using this - http://www.ibancalculator.com/ (just one of many), but I don't believe that will work from a NZ bank.

 

[mooney76]

that sounds very unfortunate but for comeback, banks can be useless. Problem is you deal with 2 banks who can fob off blame on one another.

might be worth trying transfermate.com, or someone who can commit to giving you what is agreed. In my opinion if the bank said theyd give you x, transferred and didnt have all of the details to complete the transaction, then they are liable for the difference. Waste enough of the managers time and he'll compensate

 

[Boros]

on a day to day basis i deal with foriegn currency payments and as i understand it

if you send a payment and it has insufficient details i.e iban number it should not apply to an account and therefore exchange it, and defiantly not exchange it and then exchange it back to sent to receiver.

the only course of action would be to go to the destination bank and ask them why the nzd was exchanged into EUR if it was not applied to an account. And that the normal course of action would be to 1) hold nzd until the account was specified or 2) send the funds back from where they were sent.

good luck

alex

 

[Mpsox]

If I want to pay my ESB bill from an Irish bank account, I transfer money to Account number 81900087, Sort code 93-20-86, filling in those details and an amount of money on a paper deposit slip (or internet transfer from my computer).

Should you really be posting your bank account details on an open internet forum?

 

[mathepac]

... Should you really be posting your bank account details on an open internet forum?

That's the ESB's bank account for receiving electronic transfers for domestic bills - the entire country has it!

 

[GreenArmy1]

I don't know about getting your money back but you should think about using a broker to send your money as you would have saved the transfer cost and the receiving cost.

Some ones that I have used are xe.com and cornhillfx.com which have both been really good to send money through, but there are loads of others out there to choose from if you want to look further.