Lost £200 with Electronic Transfer

roker

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The UK pension transferred £200 to my previously closed Irish bank account, the bank said they returned it immediately, the Pension department said they have not received it. This has been going on now for 6 month, I have written lots of letters to both parties which constantly say the same.
As this includes parties from both Ireland and UK how do I get this sorted, I have contacted UK agencies who generally ignore my letters.
Do I report this a theft or fraud, someone must haves my £200.
It makes me wary of electronic transfers now it could have been a large amount, back to the cheque book for me
 
More than likely it's held in a holding account by the Irish bank. It happened to me once. If you getting no where and it's been over 6 month, II would write one last letter and tell them if they don't sort it, you will make complaint to financial ombudsman.
 
Make a formal complaint firstly to both banks, ombudsman won't touch your case until you do that and have exhausted that process.
 
The trouble is, the ombudsman has no jurisdiction over the UK bank. I have contacted the ombudsman for the Irish bank.
 
I have twice contacted the Irish ombudsman and filled in a complaint form, weeks have gone by now and no reply. I have contacted the UK Independent Case Examiner (equivalent of the Ombudsman) who directed me to contact DWP complaints and surprise, no response after months
 
If your query relates to a UK Pension being paid by DWP then the case examiner would be correct that you have no complaint with the sending bank, as the DWP is their customer not you.

Complaints tend to be dealt with much quicker if submitted by an MP / MLA / Citizens Advice etc, or instructions on how to escalate a complaint to the DWP are here:

 
As the Irish bank was the last to handle the money by returning it to the DWP, should it not be the responsibility of the Irish bank?
 
no, because you are no longer a customer of that bank as your account is closed. What I am not clear from this is why did the DWP use your old bank account, had you advised them that it was changed?
 
I advised the DWP that I had changed banks and I receive my pension from them every month, it would appear that the heating allowance is on a different database and I assumed it would have all been change over the same as they did with my address.
The question now is, should I report this as fraud, missing, lost, stolen.
 
This is not fraud or theft, it's likely just gross incompetence by the DWP.

Firstly, your old bank are unlikely to have the money and if they do, it is sitting in an internal suspense account pending return to the DWP as an unprocessed payment. Normally an electronic transaction that fails to hit a bank account is bounced back within a matter of days and your bank have confirmed this has happened.

DWP have a complaints procedure which you need to follow if not done so already

https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-for-work-pensions/about/complaints-procedure

If you are not satisfied with that response your next step is to go to an independent case examiner and after that to a UK Ombudsman

Seperately you could raise a complaint with your ex bank and ask them to provide a copy of the transaction details showing when the payment was returned and to where. It's likely to have gone back to the DWP's UK bankers (since DWP are just a customer of that bank) and potentially it is sitting at that bank.
 
Update. I have a copy of the transaction details but it means nothing because both banks say they do not have the money. At long last the Ombudsman is getting involved although the bank still have not given me a final response letter. The UK Independent case examiner (there are lots of addresses) and the DWP have not responded.
I cannot see what the Ombudsman can do if I do have a final response it will have already been investigated.
 
At last after 8 months and about 12 letters it would appear that City Bank had not processed the payment to the DWP in the UK. So there is still a manual input with an electronic transfer which does go wrong
 
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