SALLY SORTS IT: I sent a year of mortgage payments to wrong account

I set up a standing order of £550 a month to pay off my buy-to-let mortgage with Barclays. 

Twelve monthly payments were sent to Barclays Bank, using the correct sort code and account number.

On receiving our annual statement in January, I was shocked to see that no payments had been credited.

I discovered that I had given the wrong mortgage reference number when setting up the standing order and, as a result, my money had been credited to another customer’s account.

I have spoken to Barclays on four occasions to sort this out, each time waiting over an hour to get through, and it still has not been resolved. Please help.

N. P., London.

Wrong reference: A reader sent a year’s worth of mortgage payments – totalling – £6,000 – to the wrong account

Sally Hamilton replies: I asked Barclays to investigate what had gone wrong and to retrieve your missing £6,600 pronto.

It seems that you made the mortgage payments into a general account at Barclays, which many mortgage customers make payments into.

Payments are then redirected to the correct customer’s mortgage account, based on the loan reference numbers they give.

In your case, you had made a small slip with the reference number when setting up your standing order.

As bad luck would have it, the number matched another borrower’s mortgage account.

Had the reference number you gave not matched that of any customers, the payments would have been rejected and landed back in your account, allowing you to rectify the reference error.

I wonder why the accidental recipient of your funds didn’t query these monthly windfalls. Perhaps they believed the mortgage fairy had visited. Or maybe, like you, they simply didn’t notice.

However, on my intervention, Barclays upped its efforts and soon put things right, crediting your £6,600 to your loan.

A Barclays spokesman says: ‘We have every sympathy with our customer who mistakenly made mortgage payments to an incorrect account. The funds were recovered and applied to the correct account.’

He adds: ‘We encourage customers to always double check that they have the correct details before arranging standing orders.’

I’ll second that.

Insurance refund went to cancelled card

I am trying to recover £459 owed to me as a refund from a motor insurance policy. My 72-year-old husband has terminal cancer and has months to live.

To reduce my outgoings, I decided to downsize to a cheaper car and so cancelled the insurance on our old vehicle on February 17. 

The insurer sent a refund to the credit card I used to buy the cover, which was our John Lewis Partnership card.

However, this card was cancelled when John Lewis changed its card provider from HSBC to a new firm. 

I have contacted HSBC numerous times over the past few weeks but it says the refund can’t be retrieved. Please can you help us get this money back?

S. W., Epsom, Surrey

Sally Hamilton replies: John Lewis faced an avalanche of complaints from disgruntled customers when it changed the provider of its John Lewis Partnership branded credit card from HSBC to New Day last year.

The gripes centred on a range of issues from long-standing customers being rejected by the new card issuer to having their spending limits cut.

Anyone who stopped using the card, whether by force or choice, could have ended up in a situation like yours if a refund was due to them and was sent after their account had been closed.

This is a fairly common occurrence for cardholders who have cancelled a credit card, and the process for returning the money should be routine.

The usual arrangement is for the money owed to go into a holding account with the original provider. The issuer should then arrange directly with the customer what to do with the payment, which might be to refund it to the new card if it is simply a replacement with the same issuer or, if not, usually a cheque is sent out to the customer.

Something went wrong in your case, and HSBC was taking an inordinately long time to organise your refund.

You and your husband have enough on your plate to worry about without having to chase up money that is rightfully yours.

I approached John Lewis for help, which in turn contacted its old HSBC pals to escalate your case ‘urgently’.

I am pleased to say this did the trick and your £459 was swiftly returned. You were also sent a bunch of flowers as an apology.

An HSBC spokesman says: ‘We work hard to ensure that any refunds issued to customers’ closed accounts are processed in a timely manner.

‘We apologise for the delay in getting this matter resolved.’

I wish you and your husband all the best at this difficult time.

• Write to Sally Hamilton at Sally Sorts It, Money Mail, Northcliffe House, 2 Derry Street, London W8 5TT or email [email protected] — include phone number, address and a note addressed to the offending organisation giving them permission to talk to Sally Hamilton. Please do not send original documents as we cannot take responsibility for them. No legal responsibility can be accepted by the Daily Mail for answers given.