Money accidently transferred to wrong account

If this was a bug on the PTSB app, and you still have the same app version on your phone, create a screen recording and reproduce the issue. It sounds like an issue on the app side, not on PTSB IT systems side, so it should be reproducible.

• If you manage to reproduce the issue, it should add some weight to your complaint with PTSB. (Although not completely binding, since you are presented with the confirmation page before completing payment).
• If you cannot reproduce the issue, I would wonder that perhaps you clicked the wrong payee.
 
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#22 above.

Gardai saying that it is the sender's fault for authorising the transfer is not good enough.
OP authorised a transfer alright but not one intended to send it to the party now in possession - the receiver.

CRIMINAL LAW.

Theft is where one "dishonestly appropriates property without the consent of its owner and with the intention of depriving its owner of it. "
We are told that the receiver is refusing to return the money to the lawful owner.
It can be argued that the receiver did not do anything to dishonestly appropriate the money in the first instance.
However, as the receiver seems to be fixed with knowledge of the facts I wonder if they are not now deemed to be dishonestly appropriating.
Link to Theft and Fraud Offences Act 2001 S4. https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2001/act/50/section/4/enacted/en/html#sec4
I would put this back to the Gardai for their consideration.

CIVIL LAW.

In civil law it seems to me that the OP has a stateable case for arguing unjust enrichment amongst other possibilities.
Unjust enrichment arises where one party benefits at the expense of another party, due to chance or mistake, and should not keep the benefit.
Specifically, the receiver has no legal foundation to argue a right to retain the money.
If the receiver is relying on the childish rhyme of "finders keepers, losers weepers" they need to be educated sharply.

WHAT TO DO ?

OP says that the amount involved is substantial.
I would waste no more time with the banks who have failed to resolve this
IMHO this should be in the hands of a solicitor ASAP as there may be a lot of work to do here.
OP may need, inter alia, to seek an injunction(s) to stop the banks and or the receiver dissipating the funds.
 
PaulJay said:
Thanks again for all your feedback. What Bluefin references is a carbon copy of what happened in my case. I am not certain of exact dates when I previously used the old IBAN (as the banking app doesnt appear to have this function - I will try to check transfer history on laptop when I get an opportunity). However the year when I used the old IBAN was 2019 as transfers to other IBAN numbers (which I remember) are after this one on my app. The only connection between the 2 IBANs is that they are both BOI a/c. Again I agree I should have double checked, agree also, I need to clean up app and remove these old IBAN s but when I click on the right payee, I did not even consider that the transfer would go to the wrong a/c
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This is very odd.

For anybody not familiar with the BOI App, it is a bit painful to use as you have to click through five or six screens to make a transfer to an existing payee. For each and every transfer you make the payee name is displayed on four separate screens and I would suggest that this makes it very surprising that the incorrect payee was selected initially and then went unnoticed. The sequence is as follows:

Step 1 The Payee Selection screen, where you select the Payee from a drop-down list, which shows Payee name and IBAN
Step 2 The Amount/Message entry screen, which displays the Payee Name
Step 3 The Send Money screen, which displays the Payee name, IBAN and BIC along with other information
Step 4 PIN ENTRY (no details displayed)
Step 5 The Approval Screen (Swipe), which again displays the Payee name and the last four digits of the IBAN.

In Brendan's example, where you intended paying Brendan Burgess and accidentally selected Sue Ellen, you would then have seen Sue Ellen's name on three further screens, with the name on display without scrolling on all three. I suppose that this is possible, but it's somewhat unlikely. It certainly lends credence to the possibility that either the stored Payee details were not what they should be, and that Sue Ellen's IBAN was somehow stored under Brendan Burgess's name, however this came to pass, or that Sue Ellen's IBAN was substituted for Brendan's, at some point.

One question, if you look at your list of Payee's now, are there two records, one with the old IBAN, (the IBAN that was actually used) and one with the correct IBAN (the IBAN that should have been used but wasn't), and if so what names are associated with each of these IBAN's ?

It's very difficult to establish exactly what happened, but BOI should be in a position to assist based on the transaction logs. e.g. did the outbound transfer have the correct or incorrect name ?
 
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Brendan Burgess said:
That is a really good idea. I have a lot of orphans in my payee list, just in case...
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Both Direct Debit Mandates and Payee's should be reviewed and culled regularly. Communications companies, Revenue and others are all known to create new DD mandates from time to time and never cancel the old ones. Also, on some bank systems, old Standing Orders can remain "stopped", no harm to also delete these.
 
But be careful. I culled all the old Revenue ones and then my Preliminary Tax bounced as the DD was no longer valid.

Brendan
 
This sounds like a disaster and I'm surprised there aren't systems in place by the banks to facilitate the reversal of this error.

Do the banks match the payee account holder's name ( as stated by the payor customer) with the actual payee's name or is it solely based on an Iban number.

Maybe this sounds naive but could you ring, or better still call in person, to the branch ( obviously found from the national sort code on the iban) where the incorrect payee holds the account and speak with the manager asking him/ her to contact the customer concerned seeking the refund.

If the customer concerned refuses to refund the money then it becomes a matter for the Gardaí to investigate ( and if they refuse contact the Garda Ombudsman) and obviously a Solicitor to recover your misappropriated funds.
 
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Sorry folks. Talk of civil suits against the payee and Garda involvement are completely wide of the mark.

Banks are large organisations where erroneous and fraudulent transactions occur in the dozens daily. Banks have policies in place for reclaiming stray payments such as this and, if not, reimbursing the payer directly. Reputation is important to them.

OP should persist with his own bank, make clear that he made the payment in error, and expects full reimbursement. Put it in writing and keep at it.
 
I was under the impression as the recall was apparently rejected by the recipient's bank that the sending bank could be of no more assistance.
Maybe I misunderstood.
 
Dr Strangelove said:
Sorry folks. Talk of civil suits against the payee and Garda involvement are completely wide of the mark.

Banks are large organisations where erroneous and fraudulent transactions occur in the dozens daily. Banks have policies in place for reclaiming stray payments such as this and, if not, reimbursing the payer directly. Reputation is important to them.

OP should persist with his own bank, make clear that he made the payment in error, and expects full reimbursement. Put it in writing and keep at it.
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I'm sure the banks have policies for errors they make themselves or fraud but having been through this a few years ago with one bank they kind of wash their hands of an error made by the customer resulting in a correctly (as in went through as input) lodgment to someone else's account.

Best that was done by the bank officially was write once to the person who got the cash asking them nicely to sign a form to debit it but they made it clear that if the person didn't voluntarily do it they couldn't debit the account themselves without the customer authorisation.
 
Thans again to everyone for all the feedback. Just to add to the story. I contacted the receiving bank ( BOI) Monday morning, for obvious reasons they are unable to share any details on receiving IBAN, they also suggested if there was an IT error in thectransfer that it was most likely on the sending bank (PTSB) side. BOI suggested that I re contact PTSB but to go in person to a branch. I did that Wednesday morning and I met a branch customer experience champion. Following our discussion he escalated the issue to the banks sepa team. (The amount transferred to the wrong A/C is significant) He subsequently rang back last evening stating that they were going to do a 2nd recall of the funds, so I need to wait until this has been completed.
I also went through how I had performed the transfer, he did not have any explanation as to how the transaction was directed to the wrong receiving IBAN. I will await feedback on the recall before retrying to understand how this occurred, but agree with sentiments throughout thread that payee list should be reviewed regularly and culled when no longer required
 
PaulJay said:
I will await feedback on the recall before retrying to understand how this occurred
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Best of luck with your endeavours, its not a nice thing to happen to anyone, especially when its a large sum of money.

We had €3,000 transferred into our AIB account many, many moons ago and I could not wait to contact the branch and get them to sort it out. Nasty thing to do to anyone especially at this time of year, season of goodwill and all that :(
 
Dr Strangelove said:
Sorry folks. Talk of civil suits against the payee and Garda involvement are completely wide of the mark.

Banks are large organisations where erroneous and fraudulent transactions occur in the dozens daily. Banks have policies in place for reclaiming stray payments such as this and, if not, reimbursing the payer directly. Reputation is important to them.

OP should persist with his own bank, make clear that he made the payment in error, and expects full reimbursement. Put it in writing and keep at it.
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At a practical level the OP seems to be getting absolutely nowhere with the banks.
Do the policies you refer to set time limits for resolving OP's problem ?
Put another way, when might OP actually reasonably expect to get a resolution ?

If OP cannot get a resolution what, in your view, should they do ?
Does the regulator have any function in this situation ?

BTW, what would be the situation if the individual receiver of the funds actually empties the money from their account leaving nothing to be returned ?
 
DirectDevil said:
Do the policies you refer to set time limits for resolving OP's problem ?
Put another way, when might OP actually reasonably expect to get a resolution ?
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I don’t know. Like with any large organisation the more levers you pull (phone, mail, in person) the more likely it is to be resolved.
DirectDevil said:
If OP cannot get a resolution what, in your view, should they do ?
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Write to the bank saying that they are making a complaint.

If that leads nowhere take it to the FPSO.

DirectDevil said:
BTW, what would be the situation if the individual receiver of the funds actually empties the money from their account leaving nothing to be returned ?
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I don’t know. In my view OP should focus full attention for now on own bank if that is where the error occurred. They will have policies for reimbursement in circumstances where they are in error.
 
Dr Strangelove said:
In my view OP should focus full attention for now on own bank if that is where the error occurred. They will have policies for reimbursement in circumstances where they are in error.
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It is highly unlikely that the error occurred in the OP's own bank, despite the OP saying that he picked the correct payee.

I suppose it's technically possible that there is a bug in ptsb's system but if there were, ptsb would know about it by now as they would have a few complaints.

Brendan
 
Sue Ellen said:
Best of luck with your endeavours, its not a nice thing to happen to anyone, especially when its a large sum of money.

We had €3,000 transferred into our AIB account many, many moons ago and I could not wait to contact the branch and get them to sort it out. Nasty thing to do to anyone especially at this time of year, season of goodwill and all that :(
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If they refuse to return the money incorrectly / erroneously lodged in to their bank account then it's time for the Gardai to knock on their door and question them on the matter. If they are aware of this happening then I agree its a nasty thing to delay in returning it if this is what is happening.
 
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