Paying your utility bill at a supermarket? Best you check the numbers says Wendy Knowler
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I often warn people to check, check and check again when making payments via EFT or at an ATM.
Choose the wrong beneficiary or transpose an account number and your money will end up as an unintentional gift in someone’s account.
That someone may well choose not to give it back, and the bank can’t compel them to, leaving lengthy, costly legal action as your only option.
Just last night I got an email from a woman who transferred R60 000 to what she thought was a friend’s Standard Bank account from her FNB account. “Now the recipient is refusing to reverse the funds and the bank cannot help,” she wrote. It’s a story I hear so often.
But Joseph Slater alerted me to another problem area: like many others, he pays his utility account at his local retailer, and in such cases it’s the till operator you rely on to key in the right numbers.
But what if they don’t?
That’s what happened to Joseph nine months ago - his R980 went into the wrong municipal account nine months ago, and he’s and he only got his money back this week - after I took up the case.
For the full story and key advice if you pay your utility at your local supermarket, listen now.
Choose the wrong beneficiary or transpose an account number and your money will end up as an unintentional gift in someone’s account.
That someone may well choose not to give it back, and the bank can’t compel them to, leaving lengthy, costly legal action as your only option.
Just last night I got an email from a woman who transferred R60 000 to what she thought was a friend’s Standard Bank account from her FNB account. “Now the recipient is refusing to reverse the funds and the bank cannot help,” she wrote. It’s a story I hear so often.
But Joseph Slater alerted me to another problem area: like many others, he pays his utility account at his local retailer, and in such cases it’s the till operator you rely on to key in the right numbers.
But what if they don’t?
That’s what happened to Joseph nine months ago - his R980 went into the wrong municipal account nine months ago, and he’s and he only got his money back this week - after I took up the case.
For the full story and key advice if you pay your utility at your local supermarket, listen now.