ATM mistake costs him $750

[silverfox@]

what I was told, bank say they cannot do anything as the money is already transfer out to another bank, they did not admit or deny their mistake.

Mr.A himself did not receive much education. When bank said nothing can be done and Mr.B insist he did not receive the extra, to him it is as good as case closed.

Mr.B told me non of the bank has called him.

It was an obvious mistake of the bank and definitely there are a lot of things he can do to retrieve the money.

Bro,
you really believe that ?
$1275 and $12750 is a big difference of $11475

I don't believe that there are people (regardless of whether educated or non-educated) will let $11475 go just like that without pursuing if they know they themselves are not in the wrong.

And as their friend, why didn't you help this friend out to pursue as I could see you are more educated.???

 

[cass888]

what I was told, bank say they cannot do anything as the money is already transfer out to another bank, they did not admit or deny their mistake.

Mr.A himself did not receive much education. When bank said nothing can be done and Mr.B insist he did not receive the extra, to him it is as good as case closed.

Mr.B told me non of the bank has called him.

It was an obvious mistake of the bank and definitely there are a lot of things he can do to retrieve the money.

You're making this up. Story too incredible.

 

[char_jig_kar]

the bank is in the wrong. sim wong foo had notice this spore unique social phenomenon long time ago. he coined the term 'nuts' for this screw up social phenomenon: no u-turn syndrome.

 

[R4g3]

Bro,
you really believe that ?
$1275 and $12750 is a big difference of $11475

I don't believe that there are people (regardless of whether educated or non-educated) will let $11475 go just like that without pursuing if they know they themselves are not in the wrong.

And as their friend, why didn't you help this friend out to pursue as I could see you are more educated.???

i believe because i saw the statement and also the cheque before.

both of them are my business friends.

Mr.B show me because he knows I don't like Mr.A too, and also he didn't believe things like this can happen himself, and he needs someone to share this "discovery".

Mr.A although is not that educated but he is making quite a lot. For a person who makes near 6 digits a month, $11,475 doesn't mean that much to him.

Not everyone will fight for what is right, and not everyone knows what are the option available. Too bad he is a jerk, if not i would have advise him to go all the way to retrieve back the money.

 

[JinGanKor]

i believe because i saw the statement and also the cheque before.

both of them are my business friends.

Mr.B show me because he knows I don't like Mr.A too, and also he didn't believe things like this can happen himself, and he needs someone to share this "discovery".

Mr.A although is not that educated but he is making quite a lot. For a person who makes near 6 digits a month, $11,475 doesn't mean that much to him.

Not everyone will fight for what is right, and not everyone knows what are the option available. Too bad he is a jerk, if not i would have advise him to go all the way to retrieve back the money.

true, some people would have given up as long as bank say can't do anything.
The lehman brothers and highnote fiasco have already proven it.

Don't say your friend is making that much a month, I believe even some who are making like $1-3k a month would obediently listen to the bank and accept it. At least 66.6% of the population are like that.

But still it is hard to believe such a mistake by the bank.

 

[cass888]

Stop talking rubbish. Any bank who has the evidence so clear would have given in. And and bank of the payee wold have adjusted accordingly.

You think forumers are so out of this world or what?

i believe because i saw the statement and also the cheque before.

both of them are my business friends.

Mr.B show me because he knows I don't like Mr.A too, and also he didn't believe things like this can happen himself, and he needs someone to share this "discovery".

Mr.A although is not that educated but he is making quite a lot. For a person who makes near 6 digits a month, $11,475 doesn't mean that much to him.

Not everyone will fight for what is right, and not everyone knows what are the option available. Too bad he is a jerk, if not i would have advise him to go all the way to retrieve back the money.

 

[silverfox@]

i believe because i saw the statement and also the cheque before.

both of them are my business friends.

Mr.B show me because he knows I don't like Mr.A too, and also he didn't believe things like this can happen himself, and he needs someone to share this "discovery".

Mr.A although is not that educated but he is making quite a lot. For a person who makes near 6 digits a month, $11,475 doesn't mean that much to him.

Not everyone will fight for what is right, and not everyone knows what are the option available. Too bad he is a jerk, if not i would have advise him to go all the way to retrieve back the money.

If these friends like what you said are jerks, they would have gone ahead to take action, even if it is $1000. Jerks are not so chin chai and bo chup.

However, I also find it very funny,
Doubts
1) how could your friend Mr A show you the cheque when your friend Mr A is supposed to give it to Mr B?
2) You mean to say before your friend Mr A gave it to Mr B, he show it to you or after he gave it to Mr B?
3) If its after Mr A gave the cheque to Mr B, how could he be able to show you the cheque when the cheque is already with the bank?
4) If Mr A show you the cheque, why didn't you tell him something is wrong with the figure?
5) If the amount on the cheque is wrong, the cheque would have bounced as the numbers and the words would not have tally.
6) If the bank still managed to show the cheque by giving you all a duplicate copy, then all the more it would show their mistake and with that, can claim back.

If the cheque shows that it is the bank's fault, the bank will compensate.
If the cheque shows that it is the customer's fault, of course the customer have no recourse.
If the cheque statement shows that it is the bank's fault and yet the customer don't want to take any action or any recourse, what is there for your friend to complain?

For a person who is making close to 6 figure a month, even though he may not be educated, but doesn't mean he is street stupid. In fact, these are the people who are the most street wise

There are just too many doubts in your story and I really find it a bit too far fetched. I have seen with my own eyes, an old auntie go to bank question the bank on discrepancy on cheque, immediately, they will take a copy of the cheque that she signed. Eventually, it proved that the old auntie had written wrongly and thats why the cheque bounced.

 

[metalslug]

http://newpaper.asia1.com.sg/news/story/0,4136,187993,00.html?

' Make ATM show account holder's name'
Readers respond to report on man who transferred $750 to wrong account
By Ho Lian-Yi

December 28, 2008




WHY, you ask, can't banks do more for customers who make mistakes during fund transfers?

The New Paper's report on 13 Dec about a bank security officer who mistakenly transferred $750 by ATM from his POSB savings account to the wrong person sparked a flood of such concerns from readers.

The security officer was told by the bank they could not help him until the recipient responded to their queries. As a result, he had to live off the $3.10 left in his account.


He has not got his money back.

Mr Lai Chick Kong, 45, a supervisor, wrote that he found it 'quite puzzling' that the bank couldn't help the individual even with the transfer receipt.

He added that his brother-in-law had a similar experience with $250, which was never recovered.

If it were a banking staff error, he noted, the bank would be able to reverse the transaction. But if the customer made a mistake, he would have to go through the hassle of a civil lawsuit.

Civil suits too expensive

He wrote: 'If I were to lose an amount below $1,000 due to a keying mistake, I won't even want to consider a civil lawsuit to recover my money. What is left after paying for legal recourse?'

Another reader, Ms Latifah Badib, 48, wrote that she sympathised with the security officer.

'I have done similar transfers at POSB's ATM machines too,' she wrote, 'But I must say I try to avoid it unless it's absolutely necessary - preferably with the transferee with me to confirm the account number is correct.'

This is because she has no way of verifying if the money is going to the right account.

Wrong account numbers could be keyed in for any reason, she wrote.

The transferer could have been given the wrong account number, for example.

She wrote: 'I don't understand why POSB's ATM machines cannot simply prompt the name of the person when the account number is keyed, so that we may be made aware if it's the person we wish to transfer the money to.

'If we decide to proceed, then POSB may say that they are not in a position to reverse the transaction. In the current situation though, I think customers are not getting a fair treatment from POSB as the service does not provide sufficient protection for them.'

Mr Allan Tang, 49, a property agent, said that in Indonesia, while during a fund transfer, the recipient's name and account number would appear on the verification screen.

'This will help older people like me with bad eyes,' he said.

Can't be done, say banks

But this cannot be done, said local banks.

A DBS Bank spokesman said: 'Banks are governed by the Banking Act and its banking secrecy provisions, so we cannot display the account holder's name as we cannot assume that the person who does the transfer knows the account holder's name.

'Nonetheless, it is a current procedure to display the account number once he keys it in so that he can check and confirm it before making the transfer.'

A United Overseas Bank spokesman said that it, too, is obliged to protect the identities of bank account holders to maintain customer confidentiality.

She reiterated that the incidence of sums being transferred wrongly is very low.

'Generally our customers will authorise refunds if they are informed and aware that the monies are not theirs or that the amount is wrong, and most such cases are quickly resolved,' she said.

She said the reason the bank cannot do a reversal is because the bank is not privy to the underlying transaction between the two parties, which is why consent is needed from the receiving party.

Reversals for transactions due to staff error are usually made immediately after it has been discovered.

 

[masgnoeL]

The general logic is very simple.
Whoever made the mistake takes the full blunt of the mistake.

So, if someone puts money into your account by mistake and you do not know it was a mistake then, you are not responsible for the mistake and you are not needed to make restitution.

The general logic in law is this. Who made the mistake will absorb the impact of the mistake.

No one else to blame but the one who made the mistake.

Generally, we do not check the transactions in our account and it is difficult to check every transaction with the myriad of transaction codes, we are lost in it easily.

The simplest way to check the transactions is to find out what gets credited and what gets debited and zoom into what gets debited. What gets debited in an account is more important and much easier to check. This is because it is taken as a fact that your account will not be debited any transaction unless you have authorized the debit BUT what gets credited to your account, you are not responsible to track its origin and the bank will not help you by revealing the creditor's details, as the bank is governed by the Banking Secrecy Act.

In any case, no one in his right frame of mind will contend with money coming into his account and transactions of telegraphic transfer are almost impossible and time consuming to trace, without much help from the bank in any case.

In a nutshell, do not make any mistake when you are making a transaction through ATM or online banking or t/t payment. You will not be able to recover your mistake. Even a civil suit will not help you to recover it either if you make known your mistake to the bank after the amount is already taken out by the recipient. This is because there is no legal case to build around against the recipient, unless you can prove that the recipient originally knows beforehand that the amount credited to his account was not meant for him and that it was wrongly credited to the account. As I have said earlier on, there is no clear way to prove that the account holder must have known the money credited to his acocunt was not meant for him because the recipient does not need to check how or where his account has money credited unless he chooses to do so and this is an individual matter not covered by law.

Now, how are you going to prove that he knows the money was wrongly credited to his account? It is impossible to prove that without putting words into the mouth of the recipient. The recipient has his basic rights in law to the use of money in his own account and no one can tell him how to use the money and that the money does not belong to him if the money is in his account. The money can come from rebates, donations, discounts, mistakes, etc, etc. The recipient does not need to verify where or what comes into his account before he considers the money in his account belongs to him. Any money in the account belongs to the account holder, that is the basic legal rule. That is why if the bank made a mistake, it will attempt to rectify it but if the money is already withdrawn, the bank will make restitution to the payer and absolve the payee. In such a case, it is the bank's fault and it will absolve all other parties. However, if it is the fault of the payer, then the bank need not over-step it role and help the payer to recover the mistake, because it is not privy to the background of the transaction and it is governed by the Banking Secrecy Act not to reveal the name of the payee to the payer. There is also not criminal or civil case whatsoever, unless a case can be built up against the payee. This is improbable unless the criminal or civil case can prove intent and motive on the part of the payee, whether it is criminal or civil.

SO, if you are eye-sight impaired, then please issue crossed cheques instead and make a trip to the quick cheque box and deposit your cheque. It only takes one working day for your cheque to clear. Cross cheque gives you 5 types of protection.

1. Crossed cheque is valid for amount credited to an account holder
2. Crossed cheque allows you to write the name of the payee on the cheque
3. Crossed cheque has numerical as well as words to describe the amount
4. Crossed cheque is cleared at the cheque clearing house and if there is any discrepancy, it will be rejected
5. You can still cancel your cheque if discover your mistake before the cheque is cleared

So, the verdict is crystal clear. If one makes a mistake, then blame no one. There is no way to recover the money. The only way is through a razor-thin concept called "moral ground", but then let's be very clear about this. "Moral" is subjective and what is moral to you may not be moral to another. There is, strictly by the law, still no case, criminal or civil.

In another sense, the payer could be considered to be "morally" wrong for tempting the payee and "morally" wrong for messing up the payee's finances, for it is like a lottery won, spent and then later told that there is a mistake in the lottery result. The payee has a reverse right to sue if it is proven that the money had finally ruined his lifestyle and finances but this is remote, just as remote as trying to use "moral ground" as the basis to build a plausible case against the payee.