Wrong account number!!

gerldoneil

I started my first job the last week and on the forms I filled in the wrong account number (wasn't paying enough attention when filling it out) anyway, I went to someone at work to try and fix it yesterday and the woman who does they pay roll is on her Christmas holidays now so I won't see her till Monday, what will happen with my wages until I get this sorted next week? If someone happens to have the account number I mistakenly put down will they have my wages? Can I get it back? I'm so confused I'm only a young one and I haven't a clue to be honest

Jim2007

gerldoneil wrote: »

I mistakenly put down will they have my wages?

Yes

gerldoneil wrote: »

Can I get it back?

Well if it really has gone to another person's account, the bank can't just take it back, they will have to discuss it with the account holder and see where it goes from there... it may take some time to sort out.

gerldoneil wrote: »

I'm so confused I'm only a young one and I haven't a clue to be honest

Well I expect this is one mistake you'll not make again.

Dia1988

Are you for real?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you put down someone else's name and address with their account number?
Or was it just their account number?

It's highly unlikely that your work/payroll will pay into an account with someone else's account or that the bank will proceed with the transfer if the name of the account does not match with the account number. It will just be sent back to the payer, in this case your employer.


It would be great if you could pay your wages into my account because after today's last minute shopping dash, my account will be looking very sorry for itself! :-(

Citizen2011

The chances of you having selected a valid account are remote considering you had to include a sort code as well.
Chance in a million.
The money will bounce back into your employers account or more likely the payment will be validated when it's loaded on Business Banking and it will show up your incorrect details as not being an active account and they will have to omit it from the payments file.

Jim2007

Dia1988 wrote: »

It's highly unlikely that your work/payroll will pay into an account with someone else's account or that the bank will proceed with the transfer if the name of the account does not match with the account number.

In the old days that was the case, but strictly speaking with SEPA payments the rule is that if the IBAN and BC is correct then the payment must be processed. In fact the account name etc may not even be transmitted...

Dia1988

Jim2007 wrote: »

In the old days that was the case, but strictly speaking with SEPA payments the rule is that if the IBAN and BC is correct then the payment must be processed. In fact the account name etc may not even be transmitted...

Ah yes....never thought about the SEPA change.

Heres hoping that the OP submitted my IBAN and BIC numbers. :pac:

Citizen2011

I misunderstood. I thought you put down an incorrect digit. If it's somebody else's account then it's likely they have your wages and I think the person will have to give consent to get it back.

Big Bag of Chips

The account number and sort code will have to match to a valid account in order for the money to be transferred successfully. Chances are that a misplaced digit isn't going to be a valid account number which matches the sort code.

I mistakenly put a 7 instead of a 9 on a form once, and it got bounced back as not a valid account number.

Chances are it will bounce back to your employer's account. They can then probably write you a cheque. At the stage though it will most likely be after Christmas before you're sorted.

To put your mind at rest you can contact the bank with the number you put on the form and ask them if it's a valid account. They should be able to confirm it for you immediately, and explain the procedure if it does turn out to be a real account.

DMcL1971

Firstly, let me assure you that it is impossible for you to have lost your money. Worst case scenario, it may take you a few days to get it back.

If you gave payroll the incorrect account number then only two things can happen. Either the account number will be valid for another customer in your bank branch or it won't. The chances of it being valid are pretty slim. The account number is 8 digits long, which means that each branch can assign up to 99 million account numbers to its customer, so the chances that you happened to pick a valid one is very slim. If you picked an invalid number then the transaction will fail, meaning no money leaves your employers account and no money goes into anyones account. In this case your employer will just have to pay you into the correct account as soon as you give payroll your correct details.

If you happened to have picked a valid account number then your salary has been successfully lodged into someone elses bank account. In this case your employer needs to inform the bank that they have lodged money into the wrong account and would like a refund. This process may take some time as some banks are very slow about providing refunds. In the mean time it is up to your employer as to whether they will pay you while they wait for their refund.

You will hear stories on the internet and people will tell you bull stories about how the money is gone and tough luck, do not believe any of these stories. It doesn't matter if the recipient immediately saw the money come into their account and withdrew it and spent it. The bank will take it back from them even if it forces their account to become overdrawn, it was not their money to spend in the first place. Even if they withdraw it and spend it and shut down their account it doesn't matter the bank will come after them with a solicitors letter. It is an urban myth that when unexpected money arrives in your bank account that it suddenly becomes yours and the bank cannot take it back. People will tell you that I am wrong because they have a mate who had some money turn up in their account and no one ever took it back, but that is because no one ever asked for it back. Many companies or wealthy or carless customers will transfer money to an incorrect account and if they don't realise they made a mistake then they won't ask for a refund, in that case then yes someone got some free cash, but if someone realises they made a mistake then that money will be taken back.

DMcL1971

If you gave your employer an incorrect IBAN rather than an account number then it is almost impossible that it would be valid. As it would have to be both someone elses valid account number and you would have had to have mistakenly given them a correct checksum digit.

If you provided a wrong account name it would make no difference as the system pays no attention to account names, it only cares about sort code/account number or BIC/IBAN.

Tow

Jim2007 wrote: »

In the old days that was the case,

25+ Years ago...

DMcL1971

Jim2007 wrote: »

Well if it really has gone to another person's account, the bank can't just take it back, they will have to discuss it with the account holder and see where it goes from there... it may take some time to sort out.

This is true. Some banks will provide a refund immediately to the employer and then spend as much time as it takes recovering the money. Others will not provide a refund until they have recovered the money from the incorrect recipient.

Seeing as how it was not the recipients fault that the money landed in their account the banks do tend to be reasonable about recovering it, in that they will usually contact you, apologise and ask if they can take it back. If you don't play ball or try to take the money and run then they will come after you.

Many years ago, a friend of mine had some money arrive in his account and he spent it, not realising that he had some extra cash in his account. The bank contacted him and asked for it back but his account was now almost empty. He said that they could have it back but he wouldn't have any funds until his next pay day. So the bank said that was fine and they would withdraw the cash after his next pay cheque was lodged. They even apologised to him for the inconvenience.

homer911

In an 8 digit account number, the 8th digit is a checksum based on the previous 7 digits and the sort code. Its highly unlikely you will have written down a valid account number

GerardKeating

homer911 wrote: »

In an 8 digit account number, the 8th digit is a checksum based on the previous 7 digits and the sort code. Its highly unlikely you will have written down a valid account number

Depends of your definition of "unlikely", the OP has a 10% change of getting a valid Account number. I did this once ordering something online, transposed a digit in the card details and it took them six months to figure this out. Some poor sod paid for an IOL renewal for me.

DMcL1971

GerardKeating wrote: »

Depends of your definition of "unlikely", the OP has a 10% change of getting a valid Account number. I did this once ordering something online, transposed a digit in the card details and it took them six months to figure this out. Some poor sod paid for an IOL renewal for me.

I don't understand where you are getting a 10% chance from? There are tens of millions of possible account numbers for every branch of every bank. Even a long established city centre branch wouldn't be anywhere near having assigned 10% of the possible account numbers.

phormium

If you put in a wrong digit and it happened to be a valid account number then it will go into the account and the bank cannot automatically take it back out again, they would if it was their mistake but it's not, it's yours. The bank will contact the customer for you and ask for their permission to debit the account and hopefully this will sort it out.

This is of course if you were unfortunate enough to pick a valid account number, if it wasn't it will just bounce back to the originating bank and will get sorted.

I did this once, I put the wrong sort code on, correct account number, the particular bank repeats it's account numbers in different branches but with the different sort codes. Unfortunately it was a dormant account and it took some time to contact the account holder to get it back. Luckily I had a friend working in the bank because other than for their efforts the bank branch were particularly uninterested in my problem.

Gordon

DMcL1971 wrote: »

I don't understand where you are getting a 10% chance from? There are tens of millions of possible account numbers for every branch of every bank. Even a long established city centre branch wouldn't be anywhere near having assigned 10% of the possible account numbers.

Not sure the exact percentage, but I think it's around that mark, maybe 15% or so. As far as I understand, banks use the Luhn Algorithm to create bank account numbers, presumably for data entry reasons like entering an incorrect digit.

For example, if sort code 112233, account 99887766 are your account number and you give the account as 112233, 99887765 - it can't be a legitimate account. But maybe 112233, 99887757 is. Maybe someone better in the know can clarify, but it's something like this afaik!

This is based on one number being transposed.

Twiki

Different banks have slightly different checksum algorithms but they all have essentially the same purpose - to prevent accidentally entering an incorrect number (especially typos). The 10% probability referred to earlier presumably just indicates the likelihood of accidentally submitting an account number which passes checksum validation provided that an account number was input randomly. However, the real probability is less given that, even if a valid number was provided, the account number might not even exist.

Aside from the checksum validation incorporated in the old-style account numbers, if the number was provided within an IBAN format, it contains an additional 2 checksum digits so the chances of any money going somewhere it shouldn't accidentally is super remote.

nlgbbbblth

RE: Is it a valid account number or not?

Look at this.

http://www.ipso.ie/action/validation

braddun

call your bank