that's liberal banking policy. why on earth they ask receivers' names and adresses, if they care only about the account number.

By koala | September 24, 2009 2:35 PM

well from the other side..koala when you sent 43000 euros i believe it worths looking better what you are typing

By kos | September 24, 2009 3:08 PM

p.s. as far as i know transactions of more than 30000 euros need to be justified because of concerning money laundering.. i think that there might be something else behind it.

By kos | September 24, 2009 3:09 PM

I would have thought someone would be a bit more careful with checking the number was right when transferring €43K???

By ant | September 24, 2009 3:22 PM

That's just immoral. Fair enough if the bank accidentally made the error and sent their own money to this greedy woman. But not this poor guy's money. Curious to know which bank it was that made the transaction. Feels like it could easily happen to any one of us...

By PiP | September 24, 2009 3:28 PM

I've mistyped before but the bank system (ABNAMRO) recognised that the name and the account didn't match. So they didn't pay it out. He must have been a customer of one of those DIY banks.

By Marvin | September 24, 2009 3:37 PM

The bank should immediately return the guy's money as they pursue recovery from their client. In so doing they will restore the trust we have in the bank itself and internet banking in general.

By Ali Balunywa | September 24, 2009 3:57 PM

Erhm...the woman was arrested for theft I hope, wasn't she?

By CW | September 24, 2009 4:10 PM

That is truly frightening. I'm going to double check every single transfer I make. I agree totally with koala - why bother with adding other details if they aren't checked?

By simplastic | September 24, 2009 4:31 PM

The number should match the name.If it doesn't and the transfer still goes through then the bank should take responsibility...after all it exposes a flaw in a system which we are all being pressurized to use. The victim in this case should be sueing the bank.

By Edward Ka-Spel | September 24, 2009 4:31 PM

she nneds to do jail time, this is outragious, and koala wtf is being a liberal got to do with anything, lib or con, do bad and get the punishment

By adhd | September 24, 2009 4:41 PM

Why will it take years? Pretty obvious what has happened here.

By Chris | September 24, 2009 4:42 PM

oh no, poor chap, i really feel for him. perfectly honest mistake now resulting in years of stress trying to recover what's rightfully his from a lady of dubious moral character. how can this be acceptable?

By slim jim | September 24, 2009 5:14 PM

i find this story hard to believe - is there any news which bank was this? perhaps an error in the e-banking application?

it is standard banking practice that account numbers are always linked to the name&address of the beneficiary account holder. all inconsistent transactions are automatically eliminated from the system and rejected...

in practice such errors occur many times on a daily basis - but we don't hear about stories like this every day, so i think we are missing part of the story here.

By joeytribiani | September 24, 2009 7:44 PM

The woman is a criminal and she should she be booked and charged for theft. Why do we let people in this country get away with murder, theft, vandalism etc and act as if they should not be punished?

By Jane Vanderpool | September 24, 2009 10:44 PM

Court should made bank responsible for this!!!!!
Bank should have the option of matching name associated with the account number.This is very basic check.Then only bank should make the transfer.
His hard earned money gone in seconds!!!!
its really sad!!!

By HPR | September 25, 2009 3:46 AM

This man should get his money back. I'm amazed that this women did not questions where this money came from and spent it as if it belonged to her - how does she sleep at night. Shocking !!!

By Marie | September 25, 2009 8:11 AM

"The man has now gone to court to ask for the money back. The entire process could take years, the paper says." It could happen in The Netherlands

By Shaun | September 25, 2009 9:00 AM

This is without a doubt a case for the Fraud Squad. The man made a genuine mistake - anybody can do this. Though do feel transferring that amount via internet banking was abit stupid. The woman who received this amount - should without a doubt charged with Fraud, she is a criminal. If this was monies she recieved in error from the Taxe's, she would have to re-pay with intrest. I do so hope the man get's his monies back from the bank & it doesn't take years.

By Wiemer | September 25, 2009 9:40 AM

I agree that what the woman did was immoral, but it wasn't illegal. She did not steal the money, nor is there any indication of fraud on her part.

Pretty sure the bank site I use checks name against account number as I've seen an error message when they don't match.

Even so the man made a mistake - I'm not sure how this can be made the bank's fault legally, and I'm not sure how he can redress it in the courts.

By Louise | September 25, 2009 10:20 AM

The banks have the technology to prevent this coupling of receiver name to bank account.So when you make an internet transfer you (could) see from the banks computer confirmation to where the money is going - currently the name and address of the receiver are not used to cross check and have no relevance.
Banks do not implement this feature as it is simpler (as in saves money) to shift the blame to the user when problems occur.

BOYCOTT INTERNET BANKING and SAVE THE WORLD

By Ahis | September 25, 2009 11:25 AM

In January, a suddenly had €1,700 credit appear in my account from the private account of someone I did not know. I contacted my bank to ask them to contact the customer (who belonged to the same banking company) and was advised that they were not able to do this and that it was down to the individual to spot the mistake, apply to his own branch and ask my permission to have the money refunded. This has still not happened. I have used the "excess" a couple of times for some emergency bills, but I am still sitting with it in my account. Why the bank cannot contact their own customer is beyond me.

By clashmach | September 25, 2009 12:51 PM

Of course it makes no sense, but corruption says it all...

By stevie | September 26, 2009 11:14 AM

I agree that what the woman did was not illegal; she simply withdrew funds that were in her account....right, wrong, or indifferent. As far as the guilt I believe what goes around will eventually comeback around. I would put the fault on the bank and the person who did the online banking exchange. In today’s technology world if not careful...you will be bitten. If a bank is going to use “online banking” as the form of bank business then they should have a backup system (putting a hold) large $$$ deposits/transfers. Here in the states a small % of a deposit/transfer with the exception of the account owner (transfer within his/her accounts) will be readily available and the remaining is held for 5 business days prior to a withdrawal. Within this time anyone who uses online banking and transfers funds outside of their own account should have ample time to make contact with the person of who is receiving the transfer/deposit. And again the person(s) making the exchange should double check EVERYTHING prior to “Submitting” the transaction. Therefore I would go after the bank to try and reimburse the gentleman then the bank can go after the woman and retrieve their money.

By Gabby | September 26, 2009 3:02 PM

Here in Canada, I've also had an unexpected credit appear in my bank account in the past. While it only took a few weeks to reverse the mistaken transfer after I detected it, it did entail some inconvenience for me. Nothing so simple as a phone call, FAX, or e-mail to the bank.

I had to visit the bank in person and complete and sign a form. And there was no sign of appreciation from either the bank or the creditor.

By contrast, when the bank itself makes such an error, as has happened several times, it reverses it without any notice to me.

Worse, I have had a bank machine in my local branch indicate that funds were in place on my account (after electronic transfer from a relative's account), only to find they weren't accessible when I wrote a cheque.

Happily, I had a printout from the machine indicating the transfer, balance, date, and time, and was thus able to successfully challenge the overdraft and interest fees charged.

However, my six-month quest to discover the cause of this misinformation, and how to avoid it in future, was a total waste of time and effort.

Despite taking the matter to the vice-presidential level of one of the two largest Canadian banks, all I got was the run-around. Although the ATM confirmed that the funds were in place, the bank's main computer hadn't "received" them yet.

No one was able (or willing) to explain this contradiction. And when I demanded to know how I could avoid such a potentially disastrous mixup (for instance, having a real-estate or business transaction fail for "insufficient funds') in future, I was advised to:

"always check with the teller at your local branch first", to be certain the funds are in place...

- this from a bank that was and is advertising massively to persuade its customers that it's perfectly safe to do all their banking via internet. ATM, or telephone "anytime, any place".

By otropogo | September 26, 2009 4:00 PM