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Comment by jotm | Hacker News Reader

Yes, that's how it works in the UK. If you, yourself, enter someone's bank details and send them money using a bank's online interface, you are responsible. The bank can not just reverse that transaction. Best they can do is contact the recipient and ask politely.

It's the cause of millions in fraud.

So, learn from this and double, triple, quadruple check what you enter every time. It takes less than a minute and can save you from bigger headaches. Just like wearing safety goggles.

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> Yes, that's how it works in the UK. If you, yourself, enter someone's bank details and send them money using a bank's online interface, you are responsible.

Except that you're not responsible. Peter Teich got his money restored using only the UK legal system.

The process was:

1. Sue the bank for the other customer's name.

2. Sue the customer who received the payment.

3. Recover from them. This recovery is (surprise!) enforcible by the bank.

If you were responsible for the consequences of sending money to an account you specified incorrectly, none of that would be possible in the first place.

Only because a court order mandated recovery of the funds. You are "responsible" in the ordinary meaning of the word for the details you input into the system therefore under its contract with you, the bank is not obliged to correct your mistake.

Obviously, when a court order compels recovery of the funds, the bank is obliged to comply.

I've been in a similar situation, and the bank was adamant they could not do anything beyond contacting the recipient. For £750, I won't bother with the legal system, so that's a loss.

I do think it's a good system, if you want to recover your money, you can go to court. Wish it was cheaper/faster/more straightforward to do that.

One can transfer a small token payment and ask the payee to confirm the amount received. If correct then transfer the remainder. It helps that my bank's site remembers the account details of recent payees.

That's a lot of effort that only protects against a fairly specific type of error. You'd still be vulnerable to phishing or to accidentally modifying the account number the 2nd time. If everybody paid their bills that way and every solicitor and employer paid their clients/employees that way, it'd be a giant mess! What? I'm not getting paid on time because they have to double check my account?

> That's a lot of effort that only protects against a fairly specific type of error. You'd still be vulnerable to phishing or to accidentally modifying the account number the 2nd time. If everybody paid their bills that way and every solicitor and employer paid their clients/employees that way, it'd be a giant mess! What? I'm not getting paid on time because they have to double check my account?

The verification would only happen prior to the first transfer of value, with subsequent transfers using the verified information.

But it makes sense for large one off payments. Send £1, phone them to ask if they got it, then send the rest. With instant payments nowadays it takes barely any more time.

People do this all the time. Mum mum did it recently paying for a used car.

Also usually the payment details are saved after the first payment so the risk of making a mistake with the second payment is low. You would reuse the saved payee.

Yes. Not sure if you meant this, but I like to send a slightly random amount without informing the payee how much. Then ask them to verify the specific amount, e.g. £1.65

>Also usually the payment details are saved after the first payment so the risk of making a mistake with the second payment is low. You would reuse the saved payee.

Exactly. A twist is my bank wipes the saved payees after a few months or so.

Paypal do it. When you hook up an account they send 5p or something, and require the transaction code number for validating the account.

Seems like if the banks cared they could add a very similar process for adding personal transfers, and mostly automate it for their customers. Except it's customer money being lost so the impetus is not there.

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