It can happen to anyone, a moment of inattention while doing internet banking and unwittingly your money has gone to the wrong person. Banks will often ask for an account name as well as account number, but no bank systems check that they match. Now, the only remaining question is, what now? How can I get my money back?
Here are a few short steps to take immediately, if this unfortunate mistake has happened to you:
1. Contact your bank as soon as possible after realising your mistake. The sooner you do this the better your chances of recovering your money. If your money went to an invalid account, it would usually bounce back into your account.
2. Retrieving a mistaken payment to a valid account can be more difficult. As a rule, banks can reverse a payment made in error only with the consent of the person who received it. Your bank and the recipient’s bank will need to co-operate to try to recover the payment. This usually involves the recipient’s bank contacting the account holder to ask his or her permission to reverse the transaction. If the recipient refuses, your only option is to take up the matter directly yourself. However, the bank’s responsibility to protect the privacy of the recipient’s contact details may prove an initial stumbling block.
3. You may wish to take court action if the recipient will not return the money. We
recommend you seek legal advice if faced with taking such a step.
4. Finally, do not make the same mistake again, register FREE of charge on the
Veriseal website, and make sure to do a Bank Account-holder Verification before
paying someone next time.
Our system is user friendly and very affordable. With Veriseal you can issue employees with separate usernames, negating the need to access your banking profile to do verifications. All verifications are archived which allows you to search, download or print in a PDF format. Your account is pre-funded by yourself which eliminates unauthorized transactions.
Register here today.