Mystery of how Nationwide lost my £3,000 in Bulgaria

theguardian.com:

Two months ago, I asked staff at Nationwide to transfer £3,000 to my husband’s bank account in Bulgaria. The money never arrived. Nationwide refused to refund me and stated, because my husband’s bank wasn’t responding to its inquiries, my case had been closed.

I asked for a letter of deadlock which I need in order to take my case to the Financial Ombudsman Service, only to be told it was still waiting for the Bulgarian bank to reply. The Bulgarian bank, meanwhile, claims it has not received any messages from Nationwide.

LT, New Malden, Surrey

Nationwide’s silence is indefensible. The building society tells me it had issued four traces via its intermediary bank to locate the funds, but received no reply. It then says it twice initiated a recall of the money but that didn’t get a response either.

Strangely, my intervention broke the impasse. The very next day, Nationwide managed to elicit the information that the transfer was rejected in Bulgaria because your husband’s account was closed. Wrong information, as it turns out.

Nationwide is still trying to get to the bottom of the mystery and locate the money, but, in the meantime, it has done what it should have done before and refunded you, along with £350 compensation to reflect the delay. According to the Financial Conduct Authority, the sending bank is liable if it can’t prove an electronic transfer reached the beneficiary account and must refund customers “without undue delay”, along with any fees or lost interest.

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