Bank has lost my money!
Discussion
Bank in question is Starling.
Payment from an overseas client was received early January. These are part of series of payments that the bank was previously advised of as we had an issue with an earlier payment from the same client. To avoid further issues they asked for information about the contract, future payments and a copy of the contract - all supplied. For context, The client is a national government of a developed nation.
Received notification that regs required them to make some checks that would take four days before funds are deposited into my account.
We're now at 15 days, 7 online 'help' chats, four phone calls and enough confirmations of 'escalation' to worry the crew of the ISS.
This afternoon I received a notification that the payment was approved but before the funds were deposited an 'internal corespondent' (whatever that is) declined the payment. They are unable to determine why or what has happened to that payment. It may have been returned to the client but given this is a government, it's not possible for them to just look at their account so the bank needs to tell me what they've done with it!
It's a fair chunk of money - around £40k.
I'm giving them until COB on Friday and then...............
That's why I'm here. What can I do? Banking Ombudsman? Solicitor?
Payment from an overseas client was received early January. These are part of series of payments that the bank was previously advised of as we had an issue with an earlier payment from the same client. To avoid further issues they asked for information about the contract, future payments and a copy of the contract - all supplied. For context, The client is a national government of a developed nation.
Received notification that regs required them to make some checks that would take four days before funds are deposited into my account.
We're now at 15 days, 7 online 'help' chats, four phone calls and enough confirmations of 'escalation' to worry the crew of the ISS.
This afternoon I received a notification that the payment was approved but before the funds were deposited an 'internal corespondent' (whatever that is) declined the payment. They are unable to determine why or what has happened to that payment. It may have been returned to the client but given this is a government, it's not possible for them to just look at their account so the bank needs to tell me what they've done with it!
It's a fair chunk of money - around £40k.
I'm giving them until COB on Friday and then...............
That's why I'm here. What can I do? Banking Ombudsman? Solicitor?
Drumroll said:
So the bank hasn't actually lost your money.
Based on the information I've had from them and in the absence of anything else, I'd say they have.The money was paid to me. They made some checks before the funds become available to me. The money isn't in my account and they cannot say why I've not received the funds or where it is! Until I hear otherwise, I'd say that's a fairly good definition of 'lost'.
Bit rusty, so hopefully have the codes/sequence right, but you should be able to address it via interbank SWIFT messages.
Ask the sender to request a copy of the SWIFT confirmation (MT103) for the transaction.
Provide a copy of that to your bank.
Your (iirc) bank can then send a MT195 querying non receipt of funds.
I'd wager that it'll be held up with a correspondent bank or has yet to be applied by your own bank - the MT103 will allow it to be located (or the original message to be corrected if it's not correct).
Ask the sender to request a copy of the SWIFT confirmation (MT103) for the transaction.
Provide a copy of that to your bank.
Your (iirc) bank can then send a MT195 querying non receipt of funds.
I'd wager that it'll be held up with a correspondent bank or has yet to be applied by your own bank - the MT103 will allow it to be located (or the original message to be corrected if it's not correct).
StevieBee said:
Drumroll said:
So the bank hasn't actually lost your money.
Based on the information I've had from them and in the absence of anything else, I'd say they have.The money was paid to me. They made some checks before the funds become available to me. The money isn't in my account and they cannot say why I've not received the funds or where it is! Until I hear otherwise, I'd say that's a fairly good definition of 'lost'.
Based on my experience with banking there is a risk team holding on to this and making checks. They will deal with it in their own good time and then it will be resolved with no apology or explanation….or, they find a genuine problem. If there is no problem it will pop out the other end…eventually.
Thanks chaps.
I do recognise that the use of the word 'lost' is unlikely to be fully accurate - but from my perspective, right here and now, that's how it seems to me.
This seems a good to route to follow:
I do recognise that the use of the word 'lost' is unlikely to be fully accurate - but from my perspective, right here and now, that's how it seems to me.
This seems a good to route to follow:
LooneyTunes said:
Bit rusty, so hopefully have the codes/sequence right, but you should be able to address it via interbank SWIFT messages.
Ask the sender to request a copy of the SWIFT confirmation (MT103) for the transaction.
Provide a copy of that to your bank.
Your (iirc) bank can then send a MT195 querying non receipt of funds.
I'd wager that it'll be held up with a correspondent bank or has yet to be applied by your own bank - the MT103 will allow it to be located (or the original message to be corrected if it's not correct).
Thank you - will give that a go!Ask the sender to request a copy of the SWIFT confirmation (MT103) for the transaction.
Provide a copy of that to your bank.
Your (iirc) bank can then send a MT195 querying non receipt of funds.
I'd wager that it'll be held up with a correspondent bank or has yet to be applied by your own bank - the MT103 will allow it to be located (or the original message to be corrected if it's not correct).
jeremyc said:
How was it resolved last time?
The two differ in that then the money was returned to the client - as it turns out because I failed to respond to a request for more information (hidden in a myriad of a million notifications I get daily!). So that's on me. But following that and on the bank's request, I provided all the information about the contract, future payments and probity of the funds so that future issues would be avoided and the money would be paid in without issue.The issue here is that despite providing that, the money still hasn't reached the account and then cannot tell me why or where it's gone.
It's probably sitting with the correspondent bank.
Currently (I believe) they can hold that money for up to 28 days before returning it to the sender, or releasing it to you.
This is down to this countries anti money laundering laws.
It's held for checks. (apparently).
You get your counterparty at the foreign government to get the transfer transaction number.
Send that to your bank. And that should then prompt the correspondent bank to move one way or the other.
I'm hoping that I don't have a similar issue, as yesterday I should have received a large transfer from a Swiss Bank.
Santander (my bank) haven't credited it to my account yet.
So we have started the procedure I mentioned above just now (well ten minutes ago).
Currently (I believe) they can hold that money for up to 28 days before returning it to the sender, or releasing it to you.
This is down to this countries anti money laundering laws.
It's held for checks. (apparently).
You get your counterparty at the foreign government to get the transfer transaction number.
Send that to your bank. And that should then prompt the correspondent bank to move one way or the other.
I'm hoping that I don't have a similar issue, as yesterday I should have received a large transfer from a Swiss Bank.
Santander (my bank) haven't credited it to my account yet.
So we have started the procedure I mentioned above just now (well ten minutes ago).
Geoffcapes said:
Currently (I believe) they can hold that money for up to 28 days before returning it to the sender, or releasing it to you.
This is down to this countries anti money laundering laws.
It's held for checks. (apparently).
You get your counterparty at the foreign government to get the transfer transaction number.
Send that to your bank. And that should then prompt the correspondent bank to move one way or the other.
Sometimes it can be a case that it gets trapped because the sender/their bank didn’t provide all of the detail needed for it to be correctly allocated, with the effect that it hangs around in an intermediate account until it can be allocated or is returned. This is down to this countries anti money laundering laws.
It's held for checks. (apparently).
You get your counterparty at the foreign government to get the transfer transaction number.
Send that to your bank. And that should then prompt the correspondent bank to move one way or the other.
I’m associated with a company who import a lot of disability / funeral equipment from China for sale in the UK.
They changed their bank to Starling and had nothing but trouble with international payments and things going wrong. They never had it with Santander prior to the move, or with Barclays who they then moved to.
They changed their bank to Starling and had nothing but trouble with international payments and things going wrong. They never had it with Santander prior to the move, or with Barclays who they then moved to.
ADJimbo said:
They changed their bank to Starling and had nothing but trouble with international payments and things going wrong. They never had it with Santander prior to the move, or with Barclays who they then moved to.
I'm beginning to recognise this myself.Time for a 'proper' bank I think!
ADJimbo said:
I m associated with a company who import a lot of disability / funeral equipment from China for sale in the UK.
They changed their bank to Starling and had nothing but trouble with international payments and things going wrong. They never had it with Santander prior to the move, or with Barclays who they then moved to.
I bank with Santander. They're fine up to £500k, after that, they're a pain in the arse!They changed their bank to Starling and had nothing but trouble with international payments and things going wrong. They never had it with Santander prior to the move, or with Barclays who they then moved to.
Quick up date.
Friday morning I had two conflicting messages, one saying that they can find no trace of the payment ever being made (despite them previously messaging the payment had arrived) requesting various references so that they can look into this. At almost the same time, had another saying that they can confirm the payment arrived but was taken back by the intermediary bank but they don't know why.
Strangely, both messages are no longer in the message log!
I had a similar issue last year and they told me that USD could only be accepted if they came from the US unless a specific routing bank was used. This it was but seems this original instruction was wrong.
Upshot is, the payment is on its way back to the client and I'm without payment. The client is a Government so when money's returned, it just goes into the treasury account and is not easy to attribute it to the ordinal payment. I will get it but when is anyone's guess. Thankfully the project has staged payments and the next one will go into a proper bank!
I've raised a formal complaint with Starling on the basis of clarity and communication (or lack of).
Friday morning I had two conflicting messages, one saying that they can find no trace of the payment ever being made (despite them previously messaging the payment had arrived) requesting various references so that they can look into this. At almost the same time, had another saying that they can confirm the payment arrived but was taken back by the intermediary bank but they don't know why.
Strangely, both messages are no longer in the message log!
I had a similar issue last year and they told me that USD could only be accepted if they came from the US unless a specific routing bank was used. This it was but seems this original instruction was wrong.
Upshot is, the payment is on its way back to the client and I'm without payment. The client is a Government so when money's returned, it just goes into the treasury account and is not easy to attribute it to the ordinal payment. I will get it but when is anyone's guess. Thankfully the project has staged payments and the next one will go into a proper bank!
I've raised a formal complaint with Starling on the basis of clarity and communication (or lack of).
I had a similar thing with Santander many (10-15) years ago over a 5 figure sum.
They had it in some temporary account because of some confusion for a week.
Ended up giving me £300 compensation (which was pretty acceptable to me).
Good luck.
I moved to using Wise. Good rates, low charges, pretty straightforward to use. Cleared some US stock a few weeks ago with no issues.
They had it in some temporary account because of some confusion for a week.
Ended up giving me £300 compensation (which was pretty acceptable to me).
Good luck.
I moved to using Wise. Good rates, low charges, pretty straightforward to use. Cleared some US stock a few weeks ago with no issues.
AyBee said:
I suspect it's not lost, more that someone is checking something and they can't tell you what or why....
The day of selling our house the money between 2 banks further down the chain 'disappeared' and no one could say what had happened?Even our solicitor was puzzled and said he'd never been in that situation before, and he was pretty senior in age.
Bloody stressful as there was absolutely no news for a week. Family had to move into a hotel.
But somehow the buyer of our place had still got the builders in and all the carpets had been ripped out.
At this point it was still our house and could be remaining so
Did turn out that someone had decided to check that particular transaction and was in no hurry to get on with it and weren't obliged to inform anyone.
f
king ridiculous!Maybe that's what is happening to you OP.
When we bought our current house the final £460k left our bank but didn't arrive in the solicitor's account. It seemed our bank transposed the last 2 digits of the solicitor's bank account number. Our bank said investigation would take 5-10 days.
Luckily receiving bank was in same town so I went in. They confirmed money had been received but would allow holder of wrong account 10 days to authorise its removal! Won't tell me which account. I convinced them to check such an account actually existed. It didn't, so money was in a hiding account. I informed my bank of this & they then contacted the receiving bank. Money back in my account at 10am next morning & in solicitor's account 1/2 hour later.
Fortunately we were in rented accommodation & our seller was understanding - they had moved out a few days earlier as they didn't need our money for the purchase of their new house.
So I sorted out the misplaced payment, not our bank. I was given £50 compensation!
Luckily receiving bank was in same town so I went in. They confirmed money had been received but would allow holder of wrong account 10 days to authorise its removal! Won't tell me which account. I convinced them to check such an account actually existed. It didn't, so money was in a hiding account. I informed my bank of this & they then contacted the receiving bank. Money back in my account at 10am next morning & in solicitor's account 1/2 hour later.
Fortunately we were in rented accommodation & our seller was understanding - they had moved out a few days earlier as they didn't need our money for the purchase of their new house.
So I sorted out the misplaced payment, not our bank. I was given £50 compensation!
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