Help our £2,500 has gone walkabout from an Aussie bank

By mistake I sent about £2,500 to an account with the wrong bank in June, and I am struggling to get it back.
My wife and I, together with some Australian friends, were using a travel agency in Australia to assist with a once-in-a-lifetime holiday to South America next year. Having made the arrangements, the agency asked us to pay a deposit of A$5,120 and we decided to pay online from our HSBC account to the travel agency’s account at ANZ Bank in Commercial Road, Fortitude Valley, Queensland. We did so fully aware and accepting of the fact that HSBC makes it clear in its online payment process that it accepts no responsibility for the making of such online payments or the recall/correction of payments made in error.
When making the payment we used the correct payee name and account number, but by mistake entered the name of National Australia Bank (NAB) rather than ANZ, probably because NAB also has an address at Commercial Road, Fortitude Valley, Queensland and that caught our eye in the list of banks automatically generated by HSBC’s online payment process. Our payment was accepted by nab even though the travel agency has no accounts there, so the bank could not possibly have credited the payment to the right payee.
This means about £2,500 of our money has been wrongly credited and HSBC is not prepared to help us correct the position. It has fobbed us off to the Financial Ombudsman. My wife and I have been Premier account holders at HSBC for more than 30 years and have nearly £400,000 in HSBC current and savings accounts. We have been very disappointed by the lack of support and are hoping that you can advise us and, if you judge it appropriate, help us to persuade HSBC that it should be doing more to help us recover an online international payment which we made incorrectly.
The action that banks can take to recover misdirected payments is limited. They can contact the receiving bank (NAB in this case) with the details of the payment, explain why the payment was made in error and ask for it to be returned. But if the recipient refuses to return the money, there is nothing either the receiving bank or your bank can do. They are not even permitted to reveal the recipient’s identity unless you get a court order. Even then you would have to take the recipient to court to get the money back. HSBC did contact NAB and was told that it had not been given permission to debit the A$5,120 from the recipient’s account.
I’m not sure how your money was allocated to a particular account in the first place. My understanding is that for a payment to be made into an Australian bank account you need the recipient’s full name as shown on the bank account, the BSB (the Australian equivalent of a sort code) and account number, plus the bank’s name and address. For international payments you would also have to provide a Swift number, which identifies banks worldwide. You told me that your travel agent doesn’t have an account with NAB, so any attempt at allocation should have fallen at the first hurdle.
I contacted NAB again to ask what steps you would have to take in Australia to retrieve the money through legal action. This seems to have prompted it back into action, as it then contacted HSBC to say it could return the money after all.
I am not sure whether the unintended recipient of your money agreed to return the sum, or whether NAB has covered the amount itself, but either way two days after I made contact, £2,378 was returned to your bank account. You said: “We have suffered a small loss of £121.69 owing to charges and exchange-rate differences, but life is too short to worry about that. We would like to highlight to other readers the importance of being extra careful with making online transfers as they might not get assistance from their bank in resolving the outcome of errors.”
• Car crash was not our fault, but Admiral just won’t see sense
I am retired and am lucky enough to live abroad for six months of the year. In December 2021 I bought a small two-bedroom flat which has communal heating and hot water for which I pay more than £5,500 a year whether I am there or not. The flat used to have its own boiler and gas supply from Shell for additional, faulty radiators which I didn’t want, so I had the boiler and radiators removed — why pay two bills?
I opened an account for electricity only with Ovo the day I bought the flat, although I battled with Shell for six months to cancel the gas account. It continued to send me bills for a standing charge even though I wasn’t using its gas, but eventually that account was closed.
I then renovated the flat, focusing on insulation and upgrading the radiators, and everything was fine when I moved in two years ago.
Suddenly in May this year I started to get letters from Octopus Energy addressed to the occupier about a new account for gas supply to my flat. I assumed Octopus had the wrong address so ignored the first two letters. When I got the third, I telephoned the company and explained that I had not set up an account, I do not have a gas supply as it’s all provided through my communal system and Octopus must have made a simple mistake. I was assured it would stop sending letters.
Since then I have received bills for ever-increasing standing charges but no gas usage. I get text messages, letters and emails constantly. I have phoned and emailed Octopus countless times. I have been accommodating, transparent and honest. I was asked for photos of the old meter outside my property which my porter provided. The letters keep coming, I keep writing back.
• Consumer rights UK: what you need to know
Finally Octopus said it needed to visit my property and required access. I have agreed to everything. However, I have been abroad since June so tried to arrange this appointment for when I return in two weeks. It couldn’t arrange an appointment so far in advance and asked me to try again nearer the time.
I am still abroad and getting increasingly concerned because I value my “excellent” credit rating. I have always been meticulous with my bill-paying, have no mortgage and pay my credit cards in full every month. Two weeks ago I had the first ever downgrade of my credit rating to “good” by Experian which has upset me enormously. Yet again I wrote to Octopus, but it did not acknowledge my concerns.
Today I received a demand from a collection agency and am distressed and frightened as to what action it could take. I can’t seem to prove to Octopus that I am not its customer. Please can you help?
You did not know that Octopus took over Shell and its customers’ accounts in December 2023, or that it began migrating the accounts to its own system early in 2024, so this contact from Octopus came completely out of the blue. I suspected that your problem was a legacy inherited from Shell, so asked Octopus to explain why it believed you should be paying standing charges on an account that Shell marked as closed two years ago.
Octopus told me that Shell had not capped the supply to your flat or removed the meter from the national database. Octopus didn’t realise that the meter was outside your flat, hence its request for access and its belief that you needed to be back from your travels to let the engineer in.
Octopus said: “When we took over Shell’s systems, we were told there was a meter in use at the property, and so automatically began charging estimated bills and standing charges. The supply has now been capped and the meter removed, which will stop all future charges.”
Given the time it has taken to fix your problem, Octopus has cleared your account of charges amounting to £193, and has made sure that any missed payment markers have been taken off your credit records, as you “should not be penalised for Shell’s mishandling of the gas issue”. It has also paid you £100 in compensation.
• Compare travel insurance providers
We have been having a problem with easyJet since our flight from Alicante to Gatwick on April 20.
Our group of four couples travelling together were told that our return flight was delayed because the aircraft had not yet departed Gatwick due to a mechanical failure.
We were then asked by easyJet to split up and travel on replacement flights the same day to ease an overbooking problem. We reluctantly agreed to do this. Our six travelling companions then received £390 compensation each, while my wife and I got £260 each. We have been trying for almost four months now to get an answer from easyJet as to why.
I asked easyJet to investigate why you and your wife were paid a total of £260 less than your friends for exactly the same inconvenience of switching flights and seats.
It said that due to a technical fault on your original plane it had to be replaced by a smaller aircraft. This meant there were too many passengers, so easyJet sought volunteers willing to accept alternative travel arrangements in exchange for compensation.
The ground handling agent at Gatwick processing the change in your flights used the incorrect compensation code for your booking but not that of your travel companions, leading to the shortfall.
EasyJet has corrected the mistake and you now have the full £780 due.