Section 35 DPA request to a Bank for details of recipient of funds sent inadvertently

[Vitamin33]

Hello everyone,

My friend accidentally paid money to someone who he cannot recall dealing with in the past but must have since the guy's details are on his system. He notified his bank the next day and they are looking into it but said they are not sure they can get the money back. My question is can he ask his bank under section 35 to disclose the recipient's address so that he can pursue recovery of the money through the small claims court? I would have thought so but can't find anything on the internet where an individual has done this and/or succeeeded. I think there is a charge for this service of like £80, which is maybe why people don't bother. Thanks vm in advance for any light anyone can throw on this matter in terms of how my friend should proceed.

[R0b]

Re: Section 35 DPA request to a Bank for details of recipient of funds sent inadverte

Hello everyone,

My friend accidentally paid money to someone who he cannot recall dealing with in the past but must have since the guy's details are on his system. He notified his bank the next day and they are looking into it but said they are not sure they can get the money back. My question is can he ask his bank under section 35 to disclose the recipient's address so that he can pursue recovery of the money through the small claims court? I would have thought so but can't find anything on the internet where an individual has done this and/or succeeeded. I think there is a charge for this service of like £80, which is maybe why people don't bother. Thanks vm in advance for any light anyone can throw on this matter in terms of how my friend should proceed.

The bank should be able to disclose the details of the person as is for the purpose of recovering money through legal proceedings including prospective proceedings as the act says. I am not sure about a charge however if the bank is going to be difficult and awkward you could apply to the court to summons them to court and get and order for them to hand over the details. Obviously it will cost some money for this and the cost of the application might outweigh the cost of payment but if they are being difficult and unreasonable you could ask the court for the bank to the costs of the application.

Some banks I've had experience with will refuse point blank until they have been summonsed to court, and at that point they will start complying. In terms of going about it, there could be a variety of options from writing to the bank or speaking to a manager in a branch and explaining taking a copy of s.35 for him or her to understand what you are after. Either may say they cannot give that information so the next step might be to contact the legal team if you can get the details and explain politely what you are after, which might get you somewhere.

Bear in mind just because s.35 says data controllers can give the information doesn't mean they are obliged to and would need an order from the court to do so.

[Openlaw15]

Re: Section 35 DPA request to a Bank for details of recipient of funds sent inadverte

Hello everyone,

My friend accidentally paid money to someone who he cannot recall dealing with in the past but must have since the guy's details are on his system. He notified his bank the next day and they are looking into it but said they are not sure they can get the money back. My question is can he ask his bank under section 35 to disclose the recipient's address so that he can pursue recovery of the money through the small claims court? I would have thought so but can't find anything on the internet where an individual has done this and/or succeeeded. I think there is a charge for this service of like £80, which is maybe why people don't bother. Thanks vm in advance for any light anyone can throw on this matter in terms of how my friend should proceed.

If the question is a legal one, then yes they have a remedy available for this type of thing it's called 'tracing.' It matters not which whomever, which bank account, even matters not if the bank account has been mixed with other money. How else do you think they can investigate money laundering in secret bank accounts?

[Openlaw15]

Re: Section 35 DPA request to a Bank for details of recipient of funds sent inadverte

Hello everyone,

My friend accidentally paid money to someone who he cannot recall dealing with in the past but must have since the guy's details are on his system. He notified his bank the next day and they are looking into it but said they are not sure they can get the money back. My question is can he ask his bank under section 35 to disclose the recipient's address so that he can pursue recovery of the money through the small claims court? I would have thought so but can't find anything on the internet where an individual has done this and/or succeeeded. I think there is a charge for this service of like £80, which is maybe why people don't bother. Thanks vm in advance for any light anyone can throw on this matter in terms of how my friend should proceed.

What details does your friend have from 'the guy' already? You say he's on his system (your friend's)? Explain by what mean 'guy's details in his system?' Was it a bank transfer? How did he accidentally pay the person anyway, bank transfers have unique numbers I believe.

[Vitamin33]

Re: Section 35 DPA request to a Bank for details of recipient of funds sent inadverte

Thank you very much for replies. We have a name and sort code and bank account number and there seem to be about five or six people with the same name. Many thanks

- - - Updated - - -

Thank you very much Rob, most helpful.

[Vitamin33]

Re: Section 35 DPA request to a Bank for details of recipient of funds sent inadverte

T thank you very much. We have a name a bank account number and sort code and there seem to be about 5 or 6 people with the same name. it's cross my mind to write to them all asking whether by any chance they were the recipient, although I think would have to be careful in terms of how much information we provided in a letter so as not to breach data protection by giving out someone's sort code and bank account number so perhaps just the sort code and a few digits of the account number.

[R0b]

Re: Section 35 DPA request to a Bank for details of recipient of funds sent inadverte

I would be a little cautious writing to them all as they could all just ignore you or deny it - do you have the addresses or was that something that you thought about when you received the information?
Do you also know the name of the bank it was transferred to?

If you don't take a look at this website which allows you to input a sort code and check the name of the bank its gone to -> http://www.paymentsuk.org.uk/consume...t-code-checker

You could then alternatively, contact the recipient's bank in the same ways mentioned above and confirm whether or not payment has been made to that account and that should help to pin point the person you need to write to. Again, the bank might refuse to disclose anything but at least you can identify the bank which the funds had gone to should you decide to make an application to the court.

[Vitamin33]

Re: Section 35 DPA request to a Bank for details of recipient of funds sent inadverte

Thank you again. He doesn't have the addresses of all the people but I've managed to find some of them through Internet research, I will use that link, cheers, to establish the bank and get my friend to write to them.