Good question!
They haven’t conceded that they made a mistake, they have conceded that they sent the money to the account from whence it came.
Now they simply can’t be bothered to persue it and so I need to find the correct stick with which to poke them.
It was probably a secretary just sending it back to the same account the original money came from. Not uncommon.
So, all they have to do is fill out the form and give it to the third party so that it can send it back ?
And why wouldn’t they do that if they have already conceded their mistake of not sending it to you ?
It does mean that you never have cleared funds, really….
In practice you do of course know that a payment from a regular customer is “good”. But let’s say you have a small business, T/O say 500k, and you get a big order worth 200k. The customer is in the M/East. A default on this will sink your company so any businessman with a brain will ask for cash up front, by bank transfer.
Now… what happens? The money isn’t yours.
An irrevocable letter of credit is not a solution either because even a 1 day overrun on the delivery will void it.
Thanks Peter.
This makes sense; if there has been a mistake on the sender’s side, their bank will ask (not tell) your bank to return it.
That page from the Met Police is more confusing than anything.
Peter,
I would be very interested to see the content of the letter from your bank. A bank transfer that is initiated by the sender should NEVER be cancellable. A bank transfer initiated by the receiver (a direct debit for example) is indeed cancellable, without justification for 5 working days, and almost indefinitely thereafter with a justification (although what constitutes proper justification seems to be at the sender’s bank’s discretion, in practice).
Thank you pmh, that is useful. Anyone here used this procedure?
what_next wrote:
That would be the gentleman’s way to do it. But then, gentlemen instead of transferring money by bank will rather send their butler to hand over the amount in cash
He was on annual leave……………….
Finners is right, it’s cheaper to use a third party.
The German company had been paid via the third party.
Later they were obliged to refund €600 which they did without consulting me by returning the money from whence it came. A reasonable mistake to make.
The recipient (the third party) has acknowledged receipt of the money but because I didn’t send it I have no authority to get them to return it, the sender has to ask for it.
The German company says that their bank cannot do it.
The third party says that there are forms to be filled out by the sending bank and have sent me those which I’ve forwarded to the German company for them in turn to forward to their bank.
This is where I’ve hit a brick wall as they are not co-operating.
In the UK I would have no problems dealing with this; it’s the senders mistake and they continue to owe me the money until such time as I have received it.
Across international borders is not quite so simple.!
€600 may not be the end of the world but I’d rather not gift it to the intermediary and it makes my book-keepers life unnecessarily difficult.
Peter wrote:
However last week I got a letter from our bank drawing our attention to the “new policy” that money paid into our bank via a transfer is (paraphrasing) not ever ours and can be taken back out.
That sounds like an attempt to combat Criminal cashback
Going back to the original post, unless the German company sent the money in accordance with your instructions, it sounds like: they owed you money, they haven’t paid it to you yet, they still owe you money.
what_next wrote:
That would be the gentleman’s way to do it. But then, gentlemen instead of transferring money by bank will rather send their butler to hand over the amount in cash
When I started working in the City of London, there were still “Bank Messengers” who would settle £millions trades in Bearer Bonds by carrying the certificates between banks in brief-cases. In principle, a Bearer Bond Certificate is cash.
