Free Money?

[YulianaBoyle]

Checking her bank accounts my wife found three mystery payments which had been credited to one of her current accounts, one for £110, two for £10. It's the account she uses to pay for holidays so it hasn't been used much recently & the amounts don't match any payments she has made.

They were listed as "unpaid PayPal payment" originating from Tate Camden. Two problems there: she hasn't got a PayPal account & has never heard of Tate Camden.

A search for Tate Camden came up with nothing more than a few forum posts from people who had had unexpected payments from them, but clearly marked "PPI & INT Refund ", so maybe a law firm or insurance company. FCA & Companies House searches came up blank.

A 25 minute call to the bank & a 15 minute call to PayPal resulted in nothing more than two more people being confused as we are. PayPal has put a marker on it so that if anybody tries to claw it back she will be notified; the banking system should do that automatically.

So, over an hour of our time wasted & we're no further forward. She's got £130 of somebody else's money while somebody somewhere is probably wasting a similar amount of time chasing payments which they haven't received.

We could only surmise that somebody has mistyped a digit in the account number or sort code, but the system now inplace to set up new payees should have have flagged up a mismatch between account name & number.

A lesson to be learnt from this: when you make a bank transfer, fill in the "reference" at the bottom of the payment screen; the payee will then know what it's all about!