Paid Utility Bill, No A/C Reference Given, Should It Return To My Bank ?

I sent an EFT on line from my bank to a utility company’s bank, in the reference field I put the utility company’s name instead of my utility account number. The utility company’s bank details were correct.

It must be a regular enough occurrence, I would have thought the payment should have been sent back to the originating bank, this has not happened, nor has the payment been credited to my utility A/c despite giving details to the utility company several times by email including a screenshot of payment from my bank.

What should happen where the utility company know the bank account where the payment came from, but don’t know the utility account number to credit the payment to ?

Thanks.

It will likely have been posted to a suspense account within the utility pending investigation as to where it has come from. It won't have been credited to your account with the utility. However they are unlikely to be able to resolve the issue until you contact them and give them the details

Thanks for the reply, I have contacted them several times by email explaining, they ask for date of payment, method of payment, name of bank, account number from which payment came from, screenshot of payment.

I have sent in the lot, and get a reply saying it has now been passed to the relevant department who will allocate the payment to my account as well as a new query reference number.

Payment is not allocated to my account.

I email and ask what’s happening ?

I get a reply asking for date of payment, method of payment …………………………………. and of course another new query reference number (5 so far).

I was hoping maybe there might be some obligation on the utility company to ‘’ Return To Sender’’ in cases where they know where payment came from, but do not know where payment is to go, if so, I would quote it in my next correspondence.

Threaten them with Joe Duffy.

There's no obligation on them to do so, but if they did, they coulddeduct handling fees and bank charges for doing so.

Why rely on email, have you phoned them?

Thanks Leo, I have tried to phone them.

I timed it, it took 5 minutes of pressing 1 for this option, 2 for that option etc, you are then on hold, had my breakfast on hold on 1 occasion, hung up when I left for work 20 minutes later, another occasion I only lasted 10 minutes before hanging up.

twofor1 said:

Thanks Leo, I have tried to phone them.

I timed it, it took 5 minutes of pressing 1 for this option, 2 for that option etc, you are then on hold, had my breakfast on hold on 1 occasion, hung up when I left for work 20 minutes later, another occasion I only lasted 10 minutes before hanging up.

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Put it in writing to them, just in case they try to come after you for the outstanding money