How Public Defender retrieved a missing $10,000 bank transfer

TWO banks had considered the two-year-old matter concerning Mary Cochrane’s cash closed until the Daily Telegraph stepped in. FREE LEGAL ADVICE AT 1PM

PD Missing Payment

MARY Cochrane didn’t think I’d be able to retrieve $10,000 of her money that vanished nearly two years ago.

She said: “I’ve tried everything.”

On Tuesday, two weeks after she wrote to me, I rang Mrs Cochrane and asked her to check her bank account.

She did then returned my call: “You are kidding. How did you do that? Oh my God! It’s there. I cannot believe it. Thank you so much.”

BLOG LIVE WITH BRYDENS LAWYERS AT 1PM TODAY

On April Fools’ Day 2013 Mrs Cochrane made a mistake while using Commonwealth Bank’s internet banking service. She transferred $10,000 to the wrong account. She meant to put it on her CBA Mastercard but instead sent it to an old National Australia Bank American Express account.

Her bookkeeper picked up the error a month later. She’s been fighting to get the money back ever since, including lodging a dispute through the Financial Ombudsman Service.

In contacting me, Mrs Cochrane said: “I am completely exhausted and have no idea what to do from here.”

Mrs Cochrane had seen the January 15 column, “Refund is refunded”, in which $1770 was retrieved for Daniel Flannery. He had entered an incorrect bank account number into H & R Block’s online tax return service.

The story explained that under the ePayments code, the bank from which the money was sent in error has to ask the receiving bank to investigate, which it must.

Apprentice bookbinder Daniel Flannery. Picture: Annika Enderborg

There appear to be two reasons Mrs Cochrane’s money wasn’t returned: Amex had difficulty finding it due to a lack of information and it suspected fraud because it wasn’t told of the mistake until 11 months after the transaction.

It’s unclear who was responsible for the delay.

I solved the problem by providing NAB with more information than it had got from CBA. Both had considered the matter closed until I intervened.

An Amex spokeswoman said: “Thanks to information supplied by NAB on January 28 this year we immediately tracked down the misplaced funds, which we found sitting in our unallocated funds holding system, and authorised a $10,000 debit to our NAB account for Mary Cochrane on January 29.”

There is no data on how often this is happening.

“I think the mistaken payment system is a mess,” said Alan Tyree, author of Banking Law in Australia.

Connect with Public Defender on Facebook

Follow Public Defender on Twitter