Thanks to Internet banking apps, transferring big sums of money can be achieved with just a few taps on the phone.
However, this convenience has now led to the modern problem of people transferring money into the wrong account.
The latest incidence of this error was committed by a woman who sent S$2,888 to the wrong account.
Source: Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash. Photo for illustration purposes only.
However, the other party has denied receiving the cash and failed to reply to subsequent attempts to contact them.
The victim is a woman named only as Ms Huang, who told Shin Min Daily News that she made the error on 18 Jan at about 7am.
The 54-year-old salesperson was sitting in her living room with all her lights off, but decided that it was time to transfer money to herself.
That was when she mistakenly sent the substantial sum of S$2,888 to the wrong account.
Source: Shin Min Daily News
Ironically, she intended to transfer money to her second account as a form of savings to prevent overspending.
When Ms Huang discovered the mistake, she immediately told her son and her bank.
They told her to wait one week while they tried to contact the other party.
However, they said it might take up to three weeks to get her money back.
At first, the account the money was sent to was unknown as no name was indicated.
However, a friend helped trace the account number and found out on 28 Jan that it belonged to a florist.
Ms Huang then remembered that she’d ordered flowers from them before but hadn’t been in touch since November 2022.
She then called them but received no response.
They allegedly denied receiving the money when she sent them a text message, claiming that she’d contacted the wrong party.
She resorted to sending them a screenshot of the transfer but didn’t get a reply despite them appearing to have seen it.
Source: Shin Min Daily News
When she tried calling them again, she couldn’t get through any longer.
Worse still, the other party has reportedly failed to respond to the bank either.
The bank has already sent them two letters asking them to send the money back, Ms Huang said.
But no response has been received from the florist so far, she added.
Now, she needs a statement from the bank to make a police report and is waiting for further instructions from them on how to proceed.
Sadly, Ms Huang helplessly said that she doesn’t know whether she’ll ever get her money back.
So she related her story to Shin Min, hoping the recipient would return her money.
She also hoped to warn others to ensure the receiver was correct before transferring money electronically.
There may be a legal recourse for Ms Huang, though.
A lawyer told Shin Min that the recipient is legally obligated to return the money if the bank has confirmed that they received it.
If they don’t, it may be regarded as theft.
The victim can make a police report or can recover the money via civil litigation, the lawyer said.
In 2021, a man was sentenced to jail for wrongfully receiving large sums of money in his bank accounts and not returning it.
While others have been in the same plight, their stories have had happy resolutions.
In August 2022, a woman in Malaysia accidentally transferred her entire first pay cheque to a total stranger.
Thankfully, she got it back, but not after the recipient initially refused to do so.
Last month, a customer wrongly transferred S$450 instead of S$4.50 to a hawker stall in Admiralty.
Thankfully, the honest stallholder gave him S$445.50 back, settling the error.
Hopefully, Ms Huang’s case will have a similar ending.
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Featured image adapted from Shin Min Daily News.
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