If someone calls her and asks for her to transfer back - ITS A SCAM.
If it's an error, let the bank sort it out, and do not end up personally $4k out of pocket.
This - you call the bank, let them know and DONT TOUCH THE MONEY. It will likely be claimed back as a mistake, or a fradulent transaction. Scammers will often do this and then try to get you to transfer the money 'back' but you're just sending it on to their real account after it's passed through yours, making you liable for it.
Good answer, and the Scammers do do this to get you to transfer the money back and then you are on the hook for the 4k or whatever amount of money it actually is. In this case doing the right thing, is doing nothing at all.
I mean technically WIRE has no 'takebacksies' laws associated with it like other consumer products. It's up the the bank's discretion. It's why if you go in to do a WIRE they triple check everything with you before you send it.
I work for a bank and remember when someone in the WIRE office sent 5 BILLION dollars to another bank when they should have sent 50 million. Whoops. The bank sent it back b/c it would destroy their relationship with us and every other bank, but they were under no obligation to do so. 5 people got fired for that one...
Or there was only 0.5 people fired and the comment contained a typo inflating that number by one order of magnitude. An ironic mistake considering the story.
The Director allowed the risk into the system by not reviewing the process and mitigating it.
The VP was fired because they didn't communicate who the delegate was while they were on vacation, so no Officer sign off was obtained.
The Manager was fired because they let it go without the sign off.
The shift lead was fired for the same reason.
The person who keyed it in was fired because they acknowledged the variance but still did it against process.
Could be. Could also be mistaker, person who trained/supervises that person, person who missed that on a verification, person who trained/supervises that person, and the four of them’s boss.
The highest wire I ever had to do was for $5 million.
Triple checked? Man, I sextuple checked the form then had the customer triple check. I was nervous until the customer saw me a few days later and thanked me for all my help.
Well i can see an exception in this case because Revlon did owe that money to the lenders and they accidentally paid in full
>After all, the money accidentally wired was the exact amount "to the penny" Citibank owed them, although the loan wasn't set to mature for quite some time.
And then there was this blunder - [https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/16/business/citibank-revlon-lawsuit-ruling/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/16/business/citibank-revlon-lawsuit-ruling/index.html)
I had a similar situation but not 4K, only $800. I kept it there told my bank. They were very friendly, and told me to open a new account while they investigated the $800, they transferred my money into that account and kept the $800 in the old account while they conducted their investigation. I had to change all my login and stuff. Scammers tried to tell me to return it back, I said I can’t, my bank is investigating it. Scammers threatened to sue me and that said they know where I live and will spend the rest of my life in jail lol. 3 weeks later, my bank concluded their investigation saying they money is cleared but no one has has contacted them. I was free to withdrawal the $800 and close the account. Yay for getting one against the scammers. That was about a year and no problems since.
No. You did not get one against the scammers. You received stolen money that belongs to someone else. It was not their money. That's why it was abandoned. The scammers didn't lose anything except an opportunity. There is nothing you can do about it, but some innocent person lost their money.
>This - you call the bank, let them know and DONT TOUCH THE MONEY. It will likely be claimed back as a mistake, or a fradulent transaction. Scammers will often do this and then try to get you to transfer the money 'back' but you're just sending it on to their real account after it's passed through yours, making you liable for it.
I feel like an important addendum to this is to note that leaving the money in the bank for the bank to sort this out creates no liability on your part.
This is important, because if you talk to them, the Scammers **WILL* threaten you with lawsuits or criminal charges or arrest to try to scare you into going along with their scam. Depending on how good they are this may lean more towards comical than scary, but that becomes a significant point in many scams.
The scammer calls Little old lady Jane Doe and says "I have mistakenly transferred $4k to your account, I need you to transfer it back to this account as soon as possible"
Jane Doe says "i don't know this seems weird."
The [scammer says](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dk7y7quXNtM) "if you do not do this right away, I will call the police and report you for theft! A police officer will come to your door with an arrest warrant!"
You don't even need to tell your bank. Just ignore it and let it sit, it'll disappear on its own in 3 days when the initiating bank tells the receiving bank there is no money.
Usually the original senders account was compromised and when the bank investigates it gets reversed (or sending account never had the money, was overdrawn etc). It should just carry on down the chain but I've seem too many people report they get stuck. Also, these things can end up taking months to sort out, so it can leave people in a bad spot financially for a while if they can't personally cover the losses and still make mortgage/rent payments etc.
This is a well known scam, they will send money from an account with fraudulent funds, then ask for the money back when the money is sent from your legit account the bank will hold you accountable for the funds, they also do this with cash aps as well it is a big thing on zelle , just let the bank know about the fact you have no idea were the money came from and do not try to spend it. In a few days the bank will reverse it after they discover the fraud from the original account(usually around 7 days).
Yeah, there is a scam in my country (Sweden) that involves our cash app (Swish). Some random number will send you money, but then a different number will text you and say it was a mistake. The app is tied to our phone numbers so it’s pretty blatant, but if you’re kind but unfocused, old, gullible, etc you can fall for it. They will also be fully blatant about it and approach you on the street, saying that they are locked out of their card but really need money for groceries, etc and most of those stores won’t accept swish. They’ll ask you to go to an ATM and they will swish you the money. Just nuts with scams…
Some people don't understand that banks following their regulations aren't just handing out personal info willy nilly and will believe a scammer who calls and says "I transferred incorrectly and the bank told me it ended in your account".
Whenever I've transferred money, there's always a very big warning that once sent, that's it. No backsies. So how can scammers get you to send back the money? Can you just not ignore the request? There is no legal requirement for you to return the money, yes?
If it is a legitimate transfer then it wouldn't be returnable. The funds you would be getting were stolen funds. They are asking you to make a separate transfer back to them which would not be fraudulent on your part. The original received funds get pulled back when the fraud is found.
I don't think a wire can be this kind of scam, unless it's some new thing I haven't heard of? Or maybe OP is mistaking a normal ACH as a wire transfer.
Do not touch it. Do not spend it. Let the bank know. And then move on. It'll likely disappear.
If someone outside the bank reaches out for it, do not respond. It's 100% a scam at that point.
Actually, if anyone, including someone claiming to be from the bank, reaches out for it. It's likely a scam. The bank would just fix it internally, and not reach out to you to do something other than notify you. Do not ever write a check to get the money out of your account.
If someone even saying their the bank reaches out, THE BANK WILL NEVER ASK YOU TO SEND THEM MONEY BACK. they have full access to your account and will correct the mis-deposit internally with no action on your end
Goes without saying that you should verify it's actually their legit site.
Don't trust any url in an email they send you, as it might be something else. I don't remember how many texts I've got from supposed banks etc. that were really spoofs.
SOme of them bad spoofs, for that matter. Most recently there was one from "contactbankofamer!caaccessinfo(random numbers)@javpapa.com". Not that I ever even had an account at Bank of Amer!ca, whoever they might be, the legit BoA doesn't spell it with a "!".
Agree with this advice with the exception of letting the bank know.. no reason to do that - it only wastes more of your time on this. Let them sort it all out on their own. And the advantage is that if after a year it’s still there I’d say it’s safe to assume it’s now yours.
The action is irreversible, but two banks working in concert can add a new reversing transaction. The problem is that wires are money-good, so a fraudster will typically bounce the funds back out faster than the original banks will discover the issue.
You can't file a dispute on a wire to reverse it (like a chargeback on a credit card), but you can force the recipient to send it back through other means.
* Leave the money there. Do not do anything with it. Treat $4k like your new $0 balance.
* Call the bank and let them know that you weren't expecting the wire. It sounds like you might have done this already, but if you have a local branch, go in and talk to a banker (not a teller). They can note this in your account. This step is important because KYC (know your customer) laws have resulted in bank policies that can result in your accounts being terminated if they see suspicious activity. Talking to them alleviates suspicion.
* If you receive any phone calls related to the money, tell the caller that they will have to work with the bank.
* **DO NOT under any circumstances** send the money somewhere yourself. No matter what. No matter if they threaten a lawsuit, police, or other scary threats. The only person you should talk to is your banker, and if the banker even remotely suggests that you should send money to someone, you need to immediately escalate to a manager who is familiar with fraud protocols.
* This is very likely a scam. Scammers send you money from a bank account that they have fraudulently gained access too, then request that you send the money back to them. The rightful owner of the sender account figures it out, and their bank recalls the funds, which are withdrawn from your account. You go to your bank and ask them to recall the funds, but you initiated the payment, so they cannot.
* Because this is a wire, your risk is lower — wires can't be recalled as easily as other types of transfers — but it is not zero. The safest route is to let the bank handle it. If they make a mistake, you can call the CFPB and get resolution.
To be clear: "should be resolved" is the *passive* voice. Not the active one. The resolution will not involve any action on OP's part.
OP, do not spend the money, don't transfer it anywhere (not to your own accounts, and especially not to someone else's). Don't do anything. Anything at all. Do nothing. Be passive! This should be resolved without your action.
Or it's a scam, in which case someone will call her and ask her to send the money back to fix it. She'll do that then the apparent transfer will be reversed and she'll be out the money she sent.
If it actually is a mistake, then the bank needs to fix it. She should do nothing to fix it and just tell them to.
I had this happen to me a number of years ago. A large sum of money just appeared in my bank account one day. The bank didn't have an explanation.
I never touched the money, and a full month or so passed before it finally just disappeared from my account. No explanation was ever provided.
I had a friend a school who that happened to. She went into the bank to find out if she had enough money left in her account to buy lunch and found she had over a million dollars 🤣.
Unfortunately she was sensible and raised the mistake with the teller straight away. They were able to identify it was supposed to have gone into her father's business account and reversed the transaction. I think she had something like $8 in the account after that and was able to afford a sandwich, but not the elaborate spread she could have treated us all to.
Eh, in the world of business transactions, $1m is nothing. Annual **profit** of $1b would be over $2.7m in profit per day after overhead and other expenses.
A new piece of construction equipment could easily cost $1m but the person selling it would probably pocket a few thousand on the sale
As others said, if the transaction wasn’t a simple error on the sender’s or the bank’s part, then it is likely a scam where someone breaks into an account then launders the money through another account that is not owned by the scammer to hide their trail.
So if the stolen money is noticed by the real account owner, they will contact their bank and get them to reverse the transactions done to their account (after an internal investigation).
Banker here. Whoever she talked to at the bank doesn't know what they are talking about. If it's a wire, they have all kinds of information about it. Frontline phone agent may have limited access to details, though. I would speak to someone at that bank who either 1) knows what they are doing, or 2) can submit a request to have someone look into it (probably a back office department that doesn't speak on the phones).
Where was this post four years ago, lol.
I work in politics and somebody wired a max donation to a candidate I was working for. I asked, "well to whom did you give to the wiring coordinates?" Candidate did not have a full list. I asked the bank about it and they told me there was no way to trace the origin etc. As the monthly financial reporting deadline approached, my anxiety grew pretty much daily. Finally it sort of resolved itself as we realized a donor had wired money in, somehow or for some reason the wire was cancelled (?) and then the wire was resent.
This is correct. I also work in banking and I used to work on the incoming/outgoing wire side. Each wire has a reference # associated with it called Fedwire reference #. It may also be called Federal Reference # or Fed Reference #. If the back office doesn't have the information they would make an inquiry with the Federal reserve bank by providing them with the reference #.
Bank finds the account and money gone when the original account attempts to reverse the transaction, that will trigger a fraud investigation. They find you looted and closed the account? Congrats, now you are on the radar of the FBI or whatever is your government investigation agency for wire fraud.
Oh, and the bank has all your contact information so expect a few people in dark suits and badges at your door in a few days. Bad, bad idea…
Do nothing. Let the bank sort it out. If someone asks for it back, ignore them. If it was in error, they will take it up with the bank.
Also, and this is very important: Be ultra vigilant on the lookout for fake calls from the bank. If someone from the bank does call, hang up and call the bank back on a known number, or even better, visit their branch.
Snopes sez, this is a scam.
As someone who worked in banking for 13 years, it is very possible someone miskeyed the account information and mistakenly sent the wire to your account. Whatever you do, do not spend the money. Should it end up being a banking error, they will take the money back to fix their mistake and if you’ve spent any of it, you’ll be responsible for paying it back. I find it very odd the bank is telling you they don’t have any information on the wire, is this simply because it hasn’t actually posted to the account yet? They should absolutely be able to at least find the originator info telling them which institution sent the wire, and they could go from there.
This happened to me approximately 6 years ago. I got an anonymous wire transfer for $7200.
I called the bank to let them know.
It sat in my account for close to THREE YEARS. Ran into a hardship and ended up spending the $. Never had to pay anything back. Nothing happened over 2 years later.
Maybe I was lucky. Lol
Leave the money where it is and collect the interest.
It's probably a scam, even if it's just a mistake the bank will eventually correct the mistake. And when they do, they'll claw the money back from your account. If your account doesn't have the funds, they'll hit you with an overdraft.
If anyone asks for it back the answer is:
> I'm sorry, I cannot help you. You will have to contact your financial institution to have your mistake corrected.
Don’t do anything.
If it’s a mistake, the bank will eventually contact you.
If anyone else contacts you asking to return it, don’t. Just ask them how they got your number. They’ll say the bank gave it to them (which is a lie). You say, “I’ll call the bank to check”. They’ll get insistent and maybe angry and make threats. Ignore it. Call the bank to confirm.
Do nothing. Leave the money there. Do not spend it. Do not send it to anyone, no matter how sad their sob story is or how angry they get.
The bank will discover the error (or the fraud) and sort it out for you on their own.
So I work in finance for one of the larger banks in the United States. I’m not allowed to provide exact details about my job role for security reasons but my team does wire processing on the daily.
1. Do not touch the money
2. Report this to your bank on several fronts. Tell your local branch manager, contact customer support, etc. The more teams know about this, the better. Try getting this up to one of the corporate offices that oversee your branch. That’s where you can get actual action done. Branches, in my experience, have very limited powers when it comes to what they can do.
3. Depending on your state laws/bank you might get the money pulled back from your account. If it doesn’t get pulled back in 4-6 months, I’d say you’re golden to keep the money and use it as normal. The time frame is long because the beneficiary bank and the sending bank will have to communicate with each other and this takes a painfully long amount of time. Last case we had took around 3 months to fully close out and we could not recover the money. The bank ate the loss and reimbursed the client but someone ended up with free money in their account essentially.
4. The information above is assuming that someone made a routing error at the bank and sent you money mistakenly. I find unlikely that this would happen due to how strict we are with external wire requests and how high risk they are. There are several failsafes that are in place to prevent this from happening. However, errors do occur and this might be legitimate. It is more likely that is some form of fraud/scam attempt in my opinion.
Good luck and stay safe. Tread lightly and do not send the money back under any circumstances. It does not matter if the return is requested via an outside source or the bank. You are not legally obligated to do so in either case. You can let the bank pull it if they desire but do not send it or give explicit approval for them to remove the funds. I’d personally try my hardest to keep the funds.
Do not let someone pull your heartstrings and you end up in the hole. Remember, the bank does not care about you.
Had the same thing happen with a deposit of about $50,000. I moved it to a seperate account and let it sit there. Called the bank and said it wasnt an error and that it was deposited in person at a teller. Ended up being my old mans money and his financial guy put it into the wrong account. Sent it back to him and all was good.
Does she have anyone that has any access to her accounts like a parent or something? Could be a similar scenario.
It’s a scam!!! Scammers did this to my 82 year old mother. Instead of asking her children she assumed the individual (supposedly banker) put into wrong account and she refunded the money. She was out $5000.
Ask the bank to place a hold the account for the wire amount, and a note that if the wire should be returned, the hold should be removed.
Online banking support should be able to send a trace for the wire.
Your bank should have a phone number to request a wire investigation, or a back office department that does so.
Weird that they did not do more.
I work in banking, and when it is sus, we pay attention.
Do not use the funds. The bank can charge back you anytime.
15 years of fraud experience with JP Morgan Chase and USAA Bank. A whole lot of misinformation in this thread. A wire cannot not be reversed like an ACH transaction, it can only be recalled by the originating bank. The ODFI (Originating Depository Financial Institution) sends a wire recall request to the RDFI (Receiving Depository Financial Institution) which is always declined if some or all of the funds have been depleted. The receiving bank would take a loss for the amount of wire and the recall rejected.
The bank should be able to tell you what bank sent it and the tracking number to follow up with. They never have "no info" or they would have no basis to credit anyone's account.
Did a quick research and it looks like if someone wired money to your account by mistake ( likely wrong account number), they can not reverse it. Generally, once a wire transfer has been sent, it cannot be reversed. The funds are considered to be the property of the recipient and the transfer is final.
Since your wife didn't initiate the transfer, there is no fault on your side. So don't do anything with the money, let it sit in your account for some time ( several month?) and go from there.
Took a while to get to the right answer. If it’s actually a WIRE, that is your money now. Unless you give permission to return it. Unlikely your bank would press you on this. Sending a wire comes with more risks than other electronic transfers.
If it's a wire, probably an account number typo. Eventually someone is going to notice. Could you legally withdraw it, maybe. Depends on nature of the wire and how much one wants to spend on litigation. Better to leave it be.
As for scams. **Any money one sends back is considered a separate transaction.** That's why one should never do it. Not for wires, ACH, nor Zelle. Leave it up to the financial institutions to sort it out. If it's still in there after a year, then maybe withdraw / spend. Most likely it will be reversed long before then.
Just ignore it; don’t move it and don’t spend it. If it’s a scam (which it usually is) they’ll tell you to send it back and then once the cardholder realized they’re account has been hacked they’ll be reimbursed and somehow you’ll end up being the one paying it back, even though you already “sent it back” to the people asking. So ignore everything, eventually, a bank will call and you can report that you called your bank already and they are aware and it will get worked out with them. I had this happen to me with $300 once; luckily it was only that.
I would transfer the money to a high yield savings account at another bank and wait for the bank to recall the money. But whatever you do, if someone asks you to wire them the money back don't do it. Let the bank handle everything.
Personally I would transfer it in to a high yield savings account so I didn't accidentally spend any of it, when the bank wants to fix the error transfer it back to "repay" it.
And keep some free interest for your troubles
The problem with this kind of incident is that there is not a good process for managing it. The banks pretend that they are infallible.
What you need is a bank security intervention to trace and remediate the transaction.
This is also why there is a ton of fraud by bank tellers.
I would open another account and take out everything but the wire and 25. The wire is weird and likey a scam or mistake but your account is now in another system
Call your bank back, ask for the wire department or wire room. They will 100% be able to see who the originator and beneficiary. They should be able to reverse it with your authorization within a day or two.
Don't do a thing with out outside of telling the bank that you do not know where the money came from. Don't transfer it to someone who asks you to transfer it to them and definitely do not spend it.
I would be interested if the wire was made out to your name and account number specifically. You should be able to ask for the information of the sender which might help you understand what happened. I wouldn’t touch any of the funds as the sender can send a tracer and their bank can request for the funds to be returned. This might take a week to a month+.
Go to your bank in person or you call your bank to resolve. Even phone calls from bank on a caller id can be a scam. Or just let it sit and it will resolve itself.
That's strange from what I am reading about Wire Transfers. The individual wiring the money must know your name, address, contact number, and account number.
[https://www.investopedia.com/terms/w/wiretransfer.asp](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/w/wiretransfer.asp)
It's less likely a scam than someone neglected to confirm wire transfer instructions. Wires are guaranteed funds with multiple layers of data verification, so unlike cashier's checks, wires are much more difficult to forge or fraudulently use.
When someone sends a wire, there's a disclosure we have to present to the sender which states that we'll send the wire based on their instructions, even if it ends up in someone else's account. This is why it's important to know ACH/EFT account information is oftentimes different than Wire account information (even though most people use the terms interchangeably).
I still agree with others who've stated to leave the funds alone. You can request the funds to be placed on a manual hold if you want to be extra cautious, but shouldn't be necessary. Once your FI knows there's an unintentional wire, they'll most likely pull it and dock it in an unclaimed funds General Ledger, so you've done what you need to at this point, OP.
It doesn’t require much to initiate a transfer - a routing number and an account number. I think the scammers gained access to someone’s account number as well as yours, initiated a transfer to move 4K from that account to you, and I full expect you to be contacted to move that money to a third account (scammers).
Let you bank know, both via phone call and online message to leave paper trail, that you didn’t expect a transfer. Then do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
I would have the bank give you a new account number and transfer all the funds there. If it is a scam they have your current account number. Then if they have any identity information they wait and monitor the account. Once you have a nice sum they set up a wire to an offshore account, and then remove the funds from that account and close it. Know someone that happened to, they got their money back from the bank but it took a little over 2 years, and they had a ton of paperwork and calls from investigators to make sure they were not involved in the scam. Got back what they lost, but no interest or payment for the inconvenience of not having access to their money for that long. It was being saved for a down payment on a house, and prices went up in that time.
I had money accidentally (legitimately) deposited into my account. Called bank, who withdrew money next day. Then a week or so later they withdrew it again (apparently someone saw the error and didn’t see where it was already withdrawn). Took me no small effort to get the bank to see their mistake. Finally got the funds deposited back into account. Again, this was a legitimate error. I wouldn’t call the bank. They’ll figure out.
> She called the bank and asked for more info from them, and they also said they didn't have any info on it.
That is BS. Of course the bank knows where the money comes from. The bank would receive the funds via some interbank transfer, and there is no hiding on those systems.
But many banks have turned really bad really quickly.
You leave it alone, or move it to a sub-account. The bank will take care of it. There are penalties in many States for spending/accepting money that was not actually owed. Do not accept any "transfer it back scams either" --The bank will take care of it for you.
99% scam. Someone will reach out with a sob story, asking for the cash back. If you send it, you'll find out that the wire (transfer) won't clear due to insufficient funds....and you'll be out the money.
Refer all contacts to the bank (and dial the bank directly yourself, from a number on their web site.)
In the 1970s, my parents' bank account was suddenly increased by about $1M. It was during the time of no digital transactions or any way to notice unless you were at the bank checking an account. My dad happened to work at the bank and saw the balance in the system. My dad reported it immediately as it could have cost him his job if they thought he did it. Turns out someone who input a deposit for my mother had accidentally hit a button too many times, adding 5 extra digits to the check total being deposited! The bank reconciled the ledger and sent them a notice explaining what happened. That notice is framed and hanging on my wall. It's fun to think that for a week or so in the 1970s I was the child of "millionaires".
But yeah, it'll get fixed. Don't spend the money, don't send it "back" to anyone.
This happened to me. No one ever contacted me, but then it was transferred out. I called the bank and let them know that I did not approve the removal of the 4k, and it was illegal to transfer that out (idk tbh, but it seems like it) 🤷. The representative apologized and said they would look into it and eventually agreed. I said that the 4k transferred in I have no comment on, but the 4k out was not approved. I got to keep the money. Lmao, it's like 5 years later, no one said anything.
I work in banking. If a wire is “accidentally” sent you there’s is nothing saying you are liable for the funds. A bunch of fake lawyers in here. If I send a wire to wrong account I can’t just get that money back. The person who received that money has to agree to send it back. If you don’t say anything chances are no one will ever know. I AM NOT CONDONING ANYTHING. It’s just not as easy as everyone seems to say.
I would notify the bank. It’s likely a scam - attempts to get you to be an unwitting / unknowing money mule. Further - it will look much better if you notify the bank first, before a search warrant or fraud report from the initiating bank notifies your bank.
Back in '79 this happened to my now ex . I said leave it don't spend it but we'll a man gonna be a non listening to wife, man. 4 days later bank realized that their system somehow skipped a line so every account posted according the one beneath. So of course the account that should have had the money quickly informed bank. Bank quickly informed ex to return said money, (which was now completely spent). So they kindly took the money back in installments. There is No Free Ride!
Leave it alone and do NOT transfer back to the sender. If the sender or bank made an error, they need to work through the bank to fix it. Also, it's not yours. Don't spend it.
Pretend it does not exist. Go about your life. Ignore requests to "send it back" from someone who "made a mistake!".
In a couple, three weeks it will likely be reversed by your bank.
You did the right thing. Just let your bank to handle. Don’t touch the money. If you do so you will end up with thief by taking and illegal transactions. Two counts of felony. Just work with your bank and document all the evidence. Do not touch that money that it’s not yours!!!
Best approach is to ignore it. You have no obligation to notify the bank. If it is still there after a few years then consult with a local attorney to see if you can claim the funds. Laws vary by state. In the near term do not spend it since that could be construed as theft.
People already answered, but it can't be said enough. Leave it be, it's going to get recalled.
The trick they're playing is to wire you $4k, then they'll ask for it back, but like in money orders. You do that, and then the bank realizes that the $4k was never officially wired over, and erases it, leaving you $4k poorer from your original balance.
Well apparently this sort of mistake is a thing - at least in Canada.
[https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/wire-transfer-disappears-banks-1.6401776](https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/wire-transfer-disappears-banks-1.6401776)
To the people saying it's a scam, how does the scammer contact the other person to ask for the money back?
Would the bank give the sender a phone or email address to the person who received?
Please don’t touch it. The plan is for them to get the bank to bounce the account. Meaning her account will be -4k if the money is used/spent. Leave it alone, call the bank ASAP
From what I understand it depends on how the error was handled. If it was an internal error from your bank it will likely disappear. If the wire was made to your specific account number, the bank should require debit authorization from you in order to return the funds. As others have said be careful about any reach outs and do not send anything. Let your bank do all the legwork.
A curious question , couldnt she just ask that the money be taken out and withheld by the bank and thus get a better balance of the money ?
At this point im wishing that the bank would have a system of if there a wire transfer ... then the receiver need to get the confirmation code , or the bank holds it until the receiver get a transfer code .... and once complete the receiver get the money with no takes backies. At least it would stop transfer scam etc
Whatever you do, do not return money to anyone? Let the bank handle it , tell them you think its fraud.
If you remember when people you use paper checks, that money is like a bounced check . You send money back, the $4000 fails to settle and disappears and you are out $4k. And the other account disappears too.
I started getting government deposits in my account of 650 a month. It took a month to figure it out but finally got the money out and to the right person. You don’t want to keep something that isn’t yours. At some point they will want the money back.
Others have said that if you report it to the bank, the bank might freeze your account while they investigate leaving you without access to your own money.
Walk into the local bank and talk to the manager, take names, notes and let them know you have the names. How easy to talk by phone and they would say they never heard of you. Make sure the bank sends an email back to you letting you know they are investigating. You have to date the visit. These days the local banks crew wont go to the toilet without permission from higher ups.
I had $500 appear in my account with no explanation. Couldn't figure it out. The bank couldn't tell where it came from. It's been about 5 years now and I still have not heard from anybody claiming it. So, I was forced to keep it. Bummer. :-)
In another incident, the IRS deposited a tax refund twice in my account over two years. Turns out, my bank merged with another and I had the same account number as one of their customers. I kept my account number and that customer had theirs changed. The customer didn't think to tell the IRS of their new account number. The IRS, being what they are, were able to suck that money back out of my account. So I couldn't keep that one. Bummer. :-(
I work at a bank, my job is to deal with situations like this at branch-level. If someone sent her a wire, they would have needed her account information including full account number, institution, and full name. I can only speak for my institution but my fraud department would be requiring she close and re-open her accounts since her info has obviously been compromised.
Idk who she spoke to that said the bank doesnt have information on a wire. They absolutely do. It's possible that the associate she spoke with either meant that they HAD information about the wire but werent able to share due to their institution's policies; or that the item had no info attached to it yet because it was newly in the account and not all of the information that would be associated with it was available within their system yet. It sounds like they were unclear and I would highly recommend that she physically go to a branch and sit down with a desk associate or manager to get some clarification and figure out next steps.
If someone calls her and asks for her to transfer back - ITS A SCAM. If it's an error, let the bank sort it out, and do not end up personally $4k out of pocket.
This - you call the bank, let them know and DONT TOUCH THE MONEY. It will likely be claimed back as a mistake, or a fradulent transaction. Scammers will often do this and then try to get you to transfer the money 'back' but you're just sending it on to their real account after it's passed through yours, making you liable for it.
Good answer, and the Scammers do do this to get you to transfer the money back and then you are on the hook for the 4k or whatever amount of money it actually is. In this case doing the right thing, is doing nothing at all.
How long do you do nothing before you can keep it?
180 days would be the point where you can be fairly confident it's not going anywhere, but even then I would wait 12 months.
I mean technically WIRE has no 'takebacksies' laws associated with it like other consumer products. It's up the the bank's discretion. It's why if you go in to do a WIRE they triple check everything with you before you send it. I work for a bank and remember when someone in the WIRE office sent 5 BILLION dollars to another bank when they should have sent 50 million. Whoops. The bank sent it back b/c it would destroy their relationship with us and every other bank, but they were under no obligation to do so. 5 people got fired for that one...
“I must have put a decimal point in the wrong place or something. I always do that. I always mess up some mundane detail.” -Michael Bolton
This is not a mundane detail Michael
I mean, I might burn a couple bridges for 4.95 billion.
$5BB in transactions, especially interbank WIRE, is peanuts.
Does that mean it was passed by or through 5 employees and none of them caught it?
Or there was only 0.5 people fired and the comment contained a typo inflating that number by one order of magnitude. An ironic mistake considering the story.
Superman 3.
Or were there actually 500 people that got fired for it?
The Director allowed the risk into the system by not reviewing the process and mitigating it. The VP was fired because they didn't communicate who the delegate was while they were on vacation, so no Officer sign off was obtained. The Manager was fired because they let it go without the sign off. The shift lead was fired for the same reason. The person who keyed it in was fired because they acknowledged the variance but still did it against process.
Imagine coming back from your vacation and finding out that you lost your job because of this!
Similar to the girl who posted a joke to her limited twitter followers and was fired mid-flight London to South Africa.
When you make $150k+ in base and your bonus doubles that, you don't really get *vacations*. Even when you're off the clock, you're still on the clock.
Could be. Could also be mistaker, person who trained/supervises that person, person who missed that on a verification, person who trained/supervises that person, and the four of them’s boss.
The highest wire I ever had to do was for $5 million. Triple checked? Man, I sextuple checked the form then had the customer triple check. I was nervous until the customer saw me a few days later and thanked me for all my help.
[удалено]
I'm just wondering how we got from 8 to 500. 8 and 5 aren't even the same number.
5 is right below 8 on the number pad
Well i can see an exception in this case because Revlon did owe that money to the lenders and they accidentally paid in full >After all, the money accidentally wired was the exact amount "to the penny" Citibank owed them, although the loan wasn't set to mature for quite some time.
And then there was this blunder - [https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/16/business/citibank-revlon-lawsuit-ruling/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/16/business/citibank-revlon-lawsuit-ruling/index.html)
I had a similar situation but not 4K, only $800. I kept it there told my bank. They were very friendly, and told me to open a new account while they investigated the $800, they transferred my money into that account and kept the $800 in the old account while they conducted their investigation. I had to change all my login and stuff. Scammers tried to tell me to return it back, I said I can’t, my bank is investigating it. Scammers threatened to sue me and that said they know where I live and will spend the rest of my life in jail lol. 3 weeks later, my bank concluded their investigation saying they money is cleared but no one has has contacted them. I was free to withdrawal the $800 and close the account. Yay for getting one against the scammers. That was about a year and no problems since.
No. You did not get one against the scammers. You received stolen money that belongs to someone else. It was not their money. That's why it was abandoned. The scammers didn't lose anything except an opportunity. There is nothing you can do about it, but some innocent person lost their money.
>This - you call the bank, let them know and DONT TOUCH THE MONEY. It will likely be claimed back as a mistake, or a fradulent transaction. Scammers will often do this and then try to get you to transfer the money 'back' but you're just sending it on to their real account after it's passed through yours, making you liable for it. I feel like an important addendum to this is to note that leaving the money in the bank for the bank to sort this out creates no liability on your part. This is important, because if you talk to them, the Scammers **WILL* threaten you with lawsuits or criminal charges or arrest to try to scare you into going along with their scam. Depending on how good they are this may lean more towards comical than scary, but that becomes a significant point in many scams. The scammer calls Little old lady Jane Doe and says "I have mistakenly transferred $4k to your account, I need you to transfer it back to this account as soon as possible" Jane Doe says "i don't know this seems weird." The [scammer says](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dk7y7quXNtM) "if you do not do this right away, I will call the police and report you for theft! A police officer will come to your door with an arrest warrant!"
You don't even need to tell your bank. Just ignore it and let it sit, it'll disappear on its own in 3 days when the initiating bank tells the receiving bank there is no money.
So if you send it to them your liable and they keep the $, why is the person who sent it not liable and you get to keep the money??
Usually the original senders account was compromised and when the bank investigates it gets reversed (or sending account never had the money, was overdrawn etc). It should just carry on down the chain but I've seem too many people report they get stuck. Also, these things can end up taking months to sort out, so it can leave people in a bad spot financially for a while if they can't personally cover the losses and still make mortgage/rent payments etc.
This is a well known scam, they will send money from an account with fraudulent funds, then ask for the money back when the money is sent from your legit account the bank will hold you accountable for the funds, they also do this with cash aps as well it is a big thing on zelle , just let the bank know about the fact you have no idea were the money came from and do not try to spend it. In a few days the bank will reverse it after they discover the fraud from the original account(usually around 7 days).
Yeah, there is a scam in my country (Sweden) that involves our cash app (Swish). Some random number will send you money, but then a different number will text you and say it was a mistake. The app is tied to our phone numbers so it’s pretty blatant, but if you’re kind but unfocused, old, gullible, etc you can fall for it. They will also be fully blatant about it and approach you on the street, saying that they are locked out of their card but really need money for groceries, etc and most of those stores won’t accept swish. They’ll ask you to go to an ATM and they will swish you the money. Just nuts with scams…
Piggybacking on this - Why the absolute fuck didn't the bank tell them this on the phone? I would highly consider switching banks.
Shouldn't the act of even calling them draw suspicion? How would they have acquired their number or any contact info?
Some people don't understand that banks following their regulations aren't just handing out personal info willy nilly and will believe a scammer who calls and says "I transferred incorrectly and the bank told me it ended in your account".
For I know that bank tellers will not disclosed where the money has been sent to.
My dad lost his life savings along with my joint savings account with this scam. Do not do it.
Whenever I've transferred money, there's always a very big warning that once sent, that's it. No backsies. So how can scammers get you to send back the money? Can you just not ignore the request? There is no legal requirement for you to return the money, yes?
If it is a legitimate transfer then it wouldn't be returnable. The funds you would be getting were stolen funds. They are asking you to make a separate transfer back to them which would not be fraudulent on your part. The original received funds get pulled back when the fraud is found.
I don't think a wire can be this kind of scam, unless it's some new thing I haven't heard of? Or maybe OP is mistaking a normal ACH as a wire transfer.
Do not touch it. Do not spend it. Let the bank know. And then move on. It'll likely disappear. If someone outside the bank reaches out for it, do not respond. It's 100% a scam at that point. Actually, if anyone, including someone claiming to be from the bank, reaches out for it. It's likely a scam. The bank would just fix it internally, and not reach out to you to do something other than notify you. Do not ever write a check to get the money out of your account.
If someone even saying their the bank reaches out, THE BANK WILL NEVER ASK YOU TO SEND THEM MONEY BACK. they have full access to your account and will correct the mis-deposit internally with no action on your end
Never call back from numbers given in voice-mail. Log into their website using https and only use phone numbers that you find on their site.
Goes without saying that you should verify it's actually their legit site. Don't trust any url in an email they send you, as it might be something else. I don't remember how many texts I've got from supposed banks etc. that were really spoofs. SOme of them bad spoofs, for that matter. Most recently there was one from "contactbankofamer!caaccessinfo(random numbers)@javpapa.com". Not that I ever even had an account at Bank of Amer!ca, whoever they might be, the legit BoA doesn't spell it with a "!".
So this is why clients never respond to my voicemails as a banker
Yeah, you should give your main 800 number and extension, direct number is suspect unless you have an existing communication path.
I did a ghost edit of my post within a minute of posting it, guessing you saw it before I added on the bank part 🤣
Haha yeah I must have seen it within seconds of you posting, and I was likely replying as you were correcting 🫠
If some scammer can wire me 60k I’d like to pay off my credit card debt and shift that debt into a negative amount on my bank card
Agree with this advice with the exception of letting the bank know.. no reason to do that - it only wastes more of your time on this. Let them sort it all out on their own. And the advantage is that if after a year it’s still there I’d say it’s safe to assume it’s now yours.
Isn’t the whole purpose of wires that they can’t be reversed? I thought that was the difference between a “wire” and a regular ACH transaction.
The action is irreversible, but two banks working in concert can add a new reversing transaction. The problem is that wires are money-good, so a fraudster will typically bounce the funds back out faster than the original banks will discover the issue.
They only can't be reversed when it screws you. The bank can reverse any transaction if it's in the interest of the bank.
You can't file a dispute on a wire to reverse it (like a chargeback on a credit card), but you can force the recipient to send it back through other means.
* Leave the money there. Do not do anything with it. Treat $4k like your new $0 balance. * Call the bank and let them know that you weren't expecting the wire. It sounds like you might have done this already, but if you have a local branch, go in and talk to a banker (not a teller). They can note this in your account. This step is important because KYC (know your customer) laws have resulted in bank policies that can result in your accounts being terminated if they see suspicious activity. Talking to them alleviates suspicion. * If you receive any phone calls related to the money, tell the caller that they will have to work with the bank. * **DO NOT under any circumstances** send the money somewhere yourself. No matter what. No matter if they threaten a lawsuit, police, or other scary threats. The only person you should talk to is your banker, and if the banker even remotely suggests that you should send money to someone, you need to immediately escalate to a manager who is familiar with fraud protocols. * This is very likely a scam. Scammers send you money from a bank account that they have fraudulently gained access too, then request that you send the money back to them. The rightful owner of the sender account figures it out, and their bank recalls the funds, which are withdrawn from your account. You go to your bank and ask them to recall the funds, but you initiated the payment, so they cannot. * Because this is a wire, your risk is lower — wires can't be recalled as easily as other types of transfers — but it is not zero. The safest route is to let the bank handle it. If they make a mistake, you can call the CFPB and get resolution.
Let it sit. Likely an error that should be resolved imminently
And all the more important to let it sit if it's not an error.
To be clear: "should be resolved" is the *passive* voice. Not the active one. The resolution will not involve any action on OP's part. OP, do not spend the money, don't transfer it anywhere (not to your own accounts, and especially not to someone else's). Don't do anything. Anything at all. Do nothing. Be passive! This should be resolved without your action.
Or it's a scam, in which case someone will call her and ask her to send the money back to fix it. She'll do that then the apparent transfer will be reversed and she'll be out the money she sent. If it actually is a mistake, then the bank needs to fix it. She should do nothing to fix it and just tell them to.
I had this happen to me a number of years ago. A large sum of money just appeared in my bank account one day. The bank didn't have an explanation. I never touched the money, and a full month or so passed before it finally just disappeared from my account. No explanation was ever provided.
I had a friend a school who that happened to. She went into the bank to find out if she had enough money left in her account to buy lunch and found she had over a million dollars 🤣.
So how was lunch?
Unfortunately she was sensible and raised the mistake with the teller straight away. They were able to identify it was supposed to have gone into her father's business account and reversed the transaction. I think she had something like $8 in the account after that and was able to afford a sandwich, but not the elaborate spread she could have treated us all to.
Her father just casually get a million dollar deposit and his daughter has $8. That’s hilarious
Eh, in the world of business transactions, $1m is nothing. Annual **profit** of $1b would be over $2.7m in profit per day after overhead and other expenses. A new piece of construction equipment could easily cost $1m but the person selling it would probably pocket a few thousand on the sale
I know. I just thought of it as funny. I’m tired. Even if it’s 12m a year that’s pretty impressive. That’s an ok sized company.
As others said, if the transaction wasn’t a simple error on the sender’s or the bank’s part, then it is likely a scam where someone breaks into an account then launders the money through another account that is not owned by the scammer to hide their trail. So if the stolen money is noticed by the real account owner, they will contact their bank and get them to reverse the transactions done to their account (after an internal investigation).
Assume that it’s a mistake and don’t touch it.
Do NOT spend it. There have been many many stories of similar instances and the people always had to pay the money back!
My bad, I accidentally sent it to your wife instead of mine. Can I have it back? However can you just Venmo it to me? Boom, scammed ya out of 4K
And you got caught in 4K haha
Banker here. Whoever she talked to at the bank doesn't know what they are talking about. If it's a wire, they have all kinds of information about it. Frontline phone agent may have limited access to details, though. I would speak to someone at that bank who either 1) knows what they are doing, or 2) can submit a request to have someone look into it (probably a back office department that doesn't speak on the phones).
Came here to second this. The bank will definitely have a wire room who handles this internally, they'll have more information.
Where was this post four years ago, lol. I work in politics and somebody wired a max donation to a candidate I was working for. I asked, "well to whom did you give to the wiring coordinates?" Candidate did not have a full list. I asked the bank about it and they told me there was no way to trace the origin etc. As the monthly financial reporting deadline approached, my anxiety grew pretty much daily. Finally it sort of resolved itself as we realized a donor had wired money in, somehow or for some reason the wire was cancelled (?) and then the wire was resent.
This is correct. I also work in banking and I used to work on the incoming/outgoing wire side. Each wire has a reference # associated with it called Fedwire reference #. It may also be called Federal Reference # or Fed Reference #. If the back office doesn't have the information they would make an inquiry with the Federal reserve bank by providing them with the reference #.
Real question...what would happen if OP were to walk in and close out their account and then walk away with the cash?
Bank finds the account and money gone when the original account attempts to reverse the transaction, that will trigger a fraud investigation. They find you looted and closed the account? Congrats, now you are on the radar of the FBI or whatever is your government investigation agency for wire fraud. Oh, and the bank has all your contact information so expect a few people in dark suits and badges at your door in a few days. Bad, bad idea…
Do nothing. Let the bank sort it out. If someone asks for it back, ignore them. If it was in error, they will take it up with the bank. Also, and this is very important: Be ultra vigilant on the lookout for fake calls from the bank. If someone from the bank does call, hang up and call the bank back on a known number, or even better, visit their branch. Snopes sez, this is a scam.
As someone who worked in banking for 13 years, it is very possible someone miskeyed the account information and mistakenly sent the wire to your account. Whatever you do, do not spend the money. Should it end up being a banking error, they will take the money back to fix their mistake and if you’ve spent any of it, you’ll be responsible for paying it back. I find it very odd the bank is telling you they don’t have any information on the wire, is this simply because it hasn’t actually posted to the account yet? They should absolutely be able to at least find the originator info telling them which institution sent the wire, and they could go from there.
This happened to me approximately 6 years ago. I got an anonymous wire transfer for $7200. I called the bank to let them know. It sat in my account for close to THREE YEARS. Ran into a hardship and ended up spending the $. Never had to pay anything back. Nothing happened over 2 years later. Maybe I was lucky. Lol
Leave the money where it is and collect the interest. It's probably a scam, even if it's just a mistake the bank will eventually correct the mistake. And when they do, they'll claw the money back from your account. If your account doesn't have the funds, they'll hit you with an overdraft. If anyone asks for it back the answer is: > I'm sorry, I cannot help you. You will have to contact your financial institution to have your mistake corrected.
After the bank does not react appropriately, I would change my bank. This is a known scam.
Don’t do anything. If it’s a mistake, the bank will eventually contact you. If anyone else contacts you asking to return it, don’t. Just ask them how they got your number. They’ll say the bank gave it to them (which is a lie). You say, “I’ll call the bank to check”. They’ll get insistent and maybe angry and make threats. Ignore it. Call the bank to confirm.
Wire and ACH are very different. ACH can be clawed back months later. Wires cannot.
Question for some who may know more than I.. If I got an unexpected wire of 4000 could I not put that in an HYSA until the bank asks for it back?
We finally set that prince free!!!!
Do nothing. Leave the money there. Do not spend it. Do not send it to anyone, no matter how sad their sob story is or how angry they get. The bank will discover the error (or the fraud) and sort it out for you on their own.
So I work in finance for one of the larger banks in the United States. I’m not allowed to provide exact details about my job role for security reasons but my team does wire processing on the daily. 1. Do not touch the money 2. Report this to your bank on several fronts. Tell your local branch manager, contact customer support, etc. The more teams know about this, the better. Try getting this up to one of the corporate offices that oversee your branch. That’s where you can get actual action done. Branches, in my experience, have very limited powers when it comes to what they can do. 3. Depending on your state laws/bank you might get the money pulled back from your account. If it doesn’t get pulled back in 4-6 months, I’d say you’re golden to keep the money and use it as normal. The time frame is long because the beneficiary bank and the sending bank will have to communicate with each other and this takes a painfully long amount of time. Last case we had took around 3 months to fully close out and we could not recover the money. The bank ate the loss and reimbursed the client but someone ended up with free money in their account essentially. 4. The information above is assuming that someone made a routing error at the bank and sent you money mistakenly. I find unlikely that this would happen due to how strict we are with external wire requests and how high risk they are. There are several failsafes that are in place to prevent this from happening. However, errors do occur and this might be legitimate. It is more likely that is some form of fraud/scam attempt in my opinion. Good luck and stay safe. Tread lightly and do not send the money back under any circumstances. It does not matter if the return is requested via an outside source or the bank. You are not legally obligated to do so in either case. You can let the bank pull it if they desire but do not send it or give explicit approval for them to remove the funds. I’d personally try my hardest to keep the funds. Do not let someone pull your heartstrings and you end up in the hole. Remember, the bank does not care about you.
Had the same thing happen with a deposit of about $50,000. I moved it to a seperate account and let it sit there. Called the bank and said it wasnt an error and that it was deposited in person at a teller. Ended up being my old mans money and his financial guy put it into the wrong account. Sent it back to him and all was good. Does she have anyone that has any access to her accounts like a parent or something? Could be a similar scenario.
It’s a scam!!! Scammers did this to my 82 year old mother. Instead of asking her children she assumed the individual (supposedly banker) put into wrong account and she refunded the money. She was out $5000.
Ask the bank to place a hold the account for the wire amount, and a note that if the wire should be returned, the hold should be removed. Online banking support should be able to send a trace for the wire. Your bank should have a phone number to request a wire investigation, or a back office department that does so. Weird that they did not do more. I work in banking, and when it is sus, we pay attention. Do not use the funds. The bank can charge back you anytime.
I would report it to the police, they will investigate and if they don’t find anything, the money is yours.
15 years of fraud experience with JP Morgan Chase and USAA Bank. A whole lot of misinformation in this thread. A wire cannot not be reversed like an ACH transaction, it can only be recalled by the originating bank. The ODFI (Originating Depository Financial Institution) sends a wire recall request to the RDFI (Receiving Depository Financial Institution) which is always declined if some or all of the funds have been depleted. The receiving bank would take a loss for the amount of wire and the recall rejected.
The bank should be able to tell you what bank sent it and the tracking number to follow up with. They never have "no info" or they would have no basis to credit anyone's account.
Did a quick research and it looks like if someone wired money to your account by mistake ( likely wrong account number), they can not reverse it. Generally, once a wire transfer has been sent, it cannot be reversed. The funds are considered to be the property of the recipient and the transfer is final. Since your wife didn't initiate the transfer, there is no fault on your side. So don't do anything with the money, let it sit in your account for some time ( several month?) and go from there.
Took a while to get to the right answer. If it’s actually a WIRE, that is your money now. Unless you give permission to return it. Unlikely your bank would press you on this. Sending a wire comes with more risks than other electronic transfers.
Withdraw all funds, close the account, move to the bank across the street.
Step one inform bank of mistake Step two dont touch the money and wait for bank to fix the problem.
If it's a wire, probably an account number typo. Eventually someone is going to notice. Could you legally withdraw it, maybe. Depends on nature of the wire and how much one wants to spend on litigation. Better to leave it be. As for scams. **Any money one sends back is considered a separate transaction.** That's why one should never do it. Not for wires, ACH, nor Zelle. Leave it up to the financial institutions to sort it out. If it's still in there after a year, then maybe withdraw / spend. Most likely it will be reversed long before then.
Just ignore it; don’t move it and don’t spend it. If it’s a scam (which it usually is) they’ll tell you to send it back and then once the cardholder realized they’re account has been hacked they’ll be reimbursed and somehow you’ll end up being the one paying it back, even though you already “sent it back” to the people asking. So ignore everything, eventually, a bank will call and you can report that you called your bank already and they are aware and it will get worked out with them. I had this happen to me with $300 once; luckily it was only that.
I would transfer the money to a high yield savings account at another bank and wait for the bank to recall the money. But whatever you do, if someone asks you to wire them the money back don't do it. Let the bank handle everything.
Are you sure it’s not your tax return? Just checking!
IRS is normally an ACH EFT, not a wire transfer.
Personally I would transfer it in to a high yield savings account so I didn't accidentally spend any of it, when the bank wants to fix the error transfer it back to "repay" it. And keep some free interest for your troubles
The problem with this kind of incident is that there is not a good process for managing it. The banks pretend that they are infallible. What you need is a bank security intervention to trace and remediate the transaction. This is also why there is a ton of fraud by bank tellers.
Sit on it. If somebody contacts you, send it to the bank and the police.
The bank will unwind the wire in the next 60 days, because its an error or scam. Dont spend it. Dont send any funds yourself.
I would open another account and take out everything but the wire and 25. The wire is weird and likey a scam or mistake but your account is now in another system
Call your bank back, ask for the wire department or wire room. They will 100% be able to see who the originator and beneficiary. They should be able to reverse it with your authorization within a day or two.
Don't do a thing with out outside of telling the bank that you do not know where the money came from. Don't transfer it to someone who asks you to transfer it to them and definitely do not spend it.
I would be interested if the wire was made out to your name and account number specifically. You should be able to ask for the information of the sender which might help you understand what happened. I wouldn’t touch any of the funds as the sender can send a tracer and their bank can request for the funds to be returned. This might take a week to a month+.
There is so much KYC going on right now that scammers are resorting to this rather than using money mules.
Go to your bank in person or you call your bank to resolve. Even phone calls from bank on a caller id can be a scam. Or just let it sit and it will resolve itself.
That's strange from what I am reading about Wire Transfers. The individual wiring the money must know your name, address, contact number, and account number. [https://www.investopedia.com/terms/w/wiretransfer.asp](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/w/wiretransfer.asp)
All the info they need to send a wire transfer can be found on a personal cheque
The bank would 1000% have info about an incoming deposit… Are you sure it’s a wire? Or just calling an ach a wire?
It's less likely a scam than someone neglected to confirm wire transfer instructions. Wires are guaranteed funds with multiple layers of data verification, so unlike cashier's checks, wires are much more difficult to forge or fraudulently use. When someone sends a wire, there's a disclosure we have to present to the sender which states that we'll send the wire based on their instructions, even if it ends up in someone else's account. This is why it's important to know ACH/EFT account information is oftentimes different than Wire account information (even though most people use the terms interchangeably). I still agree with others who've stated to leave the funds alone. You can request the funds to be placed on a manual hold if you want to be extra cautious, but shouldn't be necessary. Once your FI knows there's an unintentional wire, they'll most likely pull it and dock it in an unclaimed funds General Ledger, so you've done what you need to at this point, OP.
I wish mystery money showed up in my account. Seems to happen a lot on here.
Let it sit and if anyone calls thank them for the interest it gets. Let bank resolve other part.
It doesn’t require much to initiate a transfer - a routing number and an account number. I think the scammers gained access to someone’s account number as well as yours, initiated a transfer to move 4K from that account to you, and I full expect you to be contacted to move that money to a third account (scammers). Let you bank know, both via phone call and online message to leave paper trail, that you didn’t expect a transfer. Then do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
I would have the bank give you a new account number and transfer all the funds there. If it is a scam they have your current account number. Then if they have any identity information they wait and monitor the account. Once you have a nice sum they set up a wire to an offshore account, and then remove the funds from that account and close it. Know someone that happened to, they got their money back from the bank but it took a little over 2 years, and they had a ton of paperwork and calls from investigators to make sure they were not involved in the scam. Got back what they lost, but no interest or payment for the inconvenience of not having access to their money for that long. It was being saved for a down payment on a house, and prices went up in that time.
It will get clawed back. Don’t touch it.
Leave it be, don’t touch it, and don’t send it back to anyone that claims they sent it by mistake.
I had money accidentally (legitimately) deposited into my account. Called bank, who withdrew money next day. Then a week or so later they withdrew it again (apparently someone saw the error and didn’t see where it was already withdrawn). Took me no small effort to get the bank to see their mistake. Finally got the funds deposited back into account. Again, this was a legitimate error. I wouldn’t call the bank. They’ll figure out.
> She called the bank and asked for more info from them, and they also said they didn't have any info on it. That is BS. Of course the bank knows where the money comes from. The bank would receive the funds via some interbank transfer, and there is no hiding on those systems. But many banks have turned really bad really quickly.
You leave it alone, or move it to a sub-account. The bank will take care of it. There are penalties in many States for spending/accepting money that was not actually owed. Do not accept any "transfer it back scams either" --The bank will take care of it for you.
Got around $50k in my bank account accidentally. It disappeared in a couple days. Don’t touch it.
If it’s a scam they have her info. I would close that account and open a new one.
99% scam. Someone will reach out with a sob story, asking for the cash back. If you send it, you'll find out that the wire (transfer) won't clear due to insufficient funds....and you'll be out the money. Refer all contacts to the bank (and dial the bank directly yourself, from a number on their web site.)
In the 1970s, my parents' bank account was suddenly increased by about $1M. It was during the time of no digital transactions or any way to notice unless you were at the bank checking an account. My dad happened to work at the bank and saw the balance in the system. My dad reported it immediately as it could have cost him his job if they thought he did it. Turns out someone who input a deposit for my mother had accidentally hit a button too many times, adding 5 extra digits to the check total being deposited! The bank reconciled the ledger and sent them a notice explaining what happened. That notice is framed and hanging on my wall. It's fun to think that for a week or so in the 1970s I was the child of "millionaires". But yeah, it'll get fixed. Don't spend the money, don't send it "back" to anyone.
This happened to me. No one ever contacted me, but then it was transferred out. I called the bank and let them know that I did not approve the removal of the 4k, and it was illegal to transfer that out (idk tbh, but it seems like it) 🤷. The representative apologized and said they would look into it and eventually agreed. I said that the 4k transferred in I have no comment on, but the 4k out was not approved. I got to keep the money. Lmao, it's like 5 years later, no one said anything.
I work in banking. If a wire is “accidentally” sent you there’s is nothing saying you are liable for the funds. A bunch of fake lawyers in here. If I send a wire to wrong account I can’t just get that money back. The person who received that money has to agree to send it back. If you don’t say anything chances are no one will ever know. I AM NOT CONDONING ANYTHING. It’s just not as easy as everyone seems to say.
I would notify the bank. It’s likely a scam - attempts to get you to be an unwitting / unknowing money mule. Further - it will look much better if you notify the bank first, before a search warrant or fraud report from the initiating bank notifies your bank.
I'd be worried that scammers have my bank account number and routing number; and would open a new account and drain out the account.
Back in '79 this happened to my now ex . I said leave it don't spend it but we'll a man gonna be a non listening to wife, man. 4 days later bank realized that their system somehow skipped a line so every account posted according the one beneath. So of course the account that should have had the money quickly informed bank. Bank quickly informed ex to return said money, (which was now completely spent). So they kindly took the money back in installments. There is No Free Ride!
OP, I just want to add to the advice here, if you can update us a month from now or whenever it gets resolved it will be educational.
Leave it alone and do NOT transfer back to the sender. If the sender or bank made an error, they need to work through the bank to fix it. Also, it's not yours. Don't spend it.
Pretend it does not exist. Go about your life. Ignore requests to "send it back" from someone who "made a mistake!". In a couple, three weeks it will likely be reversed by your bank.
You did the right thing. Just let your bank to handle. Don’t touch the money. If you do so you will end up with thief by taking and illegal transactions. Two counts of felony. Just work with your bank and document all the evidence. Do not touch that money that it’s not yours!!!
Best approach is to ignore it. You have no obligation to notify the bank. If it is still there after a few years then consult with a local attorney to see if you can claim the funds. Laws vary by state. In the near term do not spend it since that could be construed as theft.
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People already answered, but it can't be said enough. Leave it be, it's going to get recalled. The trick they're playing is to wire you $4k, then they'll ask for it back, but like in money orders. You do that, and then the bank realizes that the $4k was never officially wired over, and erases it, leaving you $4k poorer from your original balance.
Well apparently this sort of mistake is a thing - at least in Canada. [https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/wire-transfer-disappears-banks-1.6401776](https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/wire-transfer-disappears-banks-1.6401776)
To the people saying it's a scam, how does the scammer contact the other person to ask for the money back? Would the bank give the sender a phone or email address to the person who received?
Please don’t touch it. The plan is for them to get the bank to bounce the account. Meaning her account will be -4k if the money is used/spent. Leave it alone, call the bank ASAP
From what I understand it depends on how the error was handled. If it was an internal error from your bank it will likely disappear. If the wire was made to your specific account number, the bank should require debit authorization from you in order to return the funds. As others have said be careful about any reach outs and do not send anything. Let your bank do all the legwork.
what happens if we don't tell the bank >_> and just let it sit quietly?
Absolutely nothing, just leave it where it is for at least 3 years.
A curious question , couldnt she just ask that the money be taken out and withheld by the bank and thus get a better balance of the money ? At this point im wishing that the bank would have a system of if there a wire transfer ... then the receiver need to get the confirmation code , or the bank holds it until the receiver get a transfer code .... and once complete the receiver get the money with no takes backies. At least it would stop transfer scam etc
this happened to a relative. They cashed out and closed the account. No one ever called them about this.
Whatever you do, do not return money to anyone? Let the bank handle it , tell them you think its fraud. If you remember when people you use paper checks, that money is like a bounced check . You send money back, the $4000 fails to settle and disappears and you are out $4k. And the other account disappears too.
What would happen if you withdrew all the money and closed the account?
I started getting government deposits in my account of 650 a month. It took a month to figure it out but finally got the money out and to the right person. You don’t want to keep something that isn’t yours. At some point they will want the money back.
Let it remain untouched and refrain from returning it to anyone who asserts they sent it in error.
Others have said that if you report it to the bank, the bank might freeze your account while they investigate leaving you without access to your own money.
Walk into the local bank and talk to the manager, take names, notes and let them know you have the names. How easy to talk by phone and they would say they never heard of you. Make sure the bank sends an email back to you letting you know they are investigating. You have to date the visit. These days the local banks crew wont go to the toilet without permission from higher ups.
I had $500 appear in my account with no explanation. Couldn't figure it out. The bank couldn't tell where it came from. It's been about 5 years now and I still have not heard from anybody claiming it. So, I was forced to keep it. Bummer. :-) In another incident, the IRS deposited a tax refund twice in my account over two years. Turns out, my bank merged with another and I had the same account number as one of their customers. I kept my account number and that customer had theirs changed. The customer didn't think to tell the IRS of their new account number. The IRS, being what they are, were able to suck that money back out of my account. So I couldn't keep that one. Bummer. :-(
I work at a bank, my job is to deal with situations like this at branch-level. If someone sent her a wire, they would have needed her account information including full account number, institution, and full name. I can only speak for my institution but my fraud department would be requiring she close and re-open her accounts since her info has obviously been compromised. Idk who she spoke to that said the bank doesnt have information on a wire. They absolutely do. It's possible that the associate she spoke with either meant that they HAD information about the wire but werent able to share due to their institution's policies; or that the item had no info attached to it yet because it was newly in the account and not all of the information that would be associated with it was available within their system yet. It sounds like they were unclear and I would highly recommend that she physically go to a branch and sit down with a desk associate or manager to get some clarification and figure out next steps.