Before we start, this is not an internet scam thing, money was not sent to Nigerian Prince, it was just transferred to a wrong person, 11 times!
My friend has set up a periodic bank transfer to pay an employee $2000 weekly last year. However, he unwittingly chose a payee details from previous payee list due to similarity of the names. This error was only discovered after 11 transfers had been made to the wrong person. Sounds unbelievable but it's true. The total of $22,000 has gone to the wrong recipient.
It seems lot of people doubt that how come there were 11 transfers before the error has been discovered. On their behalf, I have contacted my friend to make the story straight.
It's a husband and wife restaurant business, normally wife is in charge of setting up of payroll and make payment. Husband asked wife to setup a transfer to pay the employee. When the employee notice the payment didn't come, he contacted the husband, then husband couldn't see the payment to the correct person, so he paid him through another fund. He forgot to check with his wife on this matter.
The wrong recipient was paid once on 2016, so his bank detail is on the payee list.
That's why it was only discovered after 11 transfers.
The money was sent from Bank S to Bank A, which was wrong recipient's bank. He has contacted his own Bank S, told them the mistake and asked them to recover the money on his behalf. After a while, Bank S sent 11 letters to him, all but said one thing, Recover is Unsuccessful, End of Message.
He has contacted Bank S again, they told him they couldn't help him anymore, he should contact the person who wrongly received his money directly. Is this a correct advice?
He only has the person's name and bank detail, no address though. When he tried to contact Bank A, they told him they couldn't help him due to privacy laws. Fair enough.
Here are some options I can think of:
1) ask a lawyer to send a letter of demand to Bank A, demand Bank A to freeze the fund and return to my friend.
This is base on the Fact Sheet - Mistaken internet payments from Financial Ombudsman Service.
"Between 10 business days and 7 months: the recipient's bank will freeze the funds.
The recipient will then have 10 business days to show they are entitled to the funds. If
they do not, the funds will be returned to you. "
2) report to Police, it should be equivalent to the case that you drop your wallet, someone picked it up but unwilling to return it back to you. right?
3) engage professional service, e.g. private investigator, debt collector, even bikies? the dilemma is that the amount of the lost money may not be quite substantial to cover the cost in the end, so is it a worthwhile option?
Can any fellow OzBargainer come up a recourse to recoup the money? Or the money is lost forever due to bank unwilling to assist anymore.
Thanks in advance
TLDR: $22000 was sent to wrong person due to genuine mistake, not due to scam, how to get it back
@trapper: Any loss can be tax deductible, even if the owner is incompetent, and lost money due to their own failure to prevent errors due to negligence, talk to an accountant and stop talking out of your ass.