‘Missing Credit’ (Not Monzo)

Months ago, HMRC sent me a letter about a tax refund I was owed. They said they’d refunded the money to my TSB debit card.

I contacted them to tell them that they couldn’t do that, because I’d cancelled that particular card. They said that instead they would pay to my bank account, rather than through a card.

A few weeks later I received a letter telling me that they wouldn’t be paying the refund because it had already been successfully paid. I checked again, it hadn’t. I contacted HMRC and told them this, they continued to argue with me.

I then contacted TSB to chase it at their end. They confirmed that they hadn’t received the funds. I went back to HMRC who said they would launch an investigation and to contact them again in 6 weeks.

6 weeks passed and HMRC sent another letter saying that the money was definitely paid successfully to the cancelled card.

More back and forth.

TSB have now checked AGAIN and are moving my complaint to their Missing Credit team.

I feel like money I was owed many months ago has gone forever. I’ve missed opportunities because of this money that I had plans for. Everyone insists that it’s not their problem.

I know this isn’t a Monzo issue but from back in my TSB days, but has anyone dealt with similar and what was the outcome? How do I get this resolved?

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Hmmm very odd! The TSB card should have rejected the refund if it was an expired or cancelled card but it sounds like it didn’t which would mean their missing credit team is probably the best place to have your complaint escalated to. I assume this team will be able to trace it

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Should it? In my experience, credits to a cancelled card would be forwarded to the customer’s account as the card ref (even though cancelled) still links to the same bank account.

I would say this sounds like an issue of TSB not routing the money to the account as they should.

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Guess it depends if the actual account was cancelled or not. I was assuming it was but that may be wrong

I think I found the problem

Ah, there we go

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Why were HMRC trying to credit your account… They usually are very old fashioned and send cheques out in the post… Are we seeing modernisation? (I’m not actually asking you to answer, just surprised haha)

If the card was cancelled but the account was active, the payment should still go through. I just closed my credit card and they specifically state that if any payments like reoccurring payments are attempted I’m still liable for the cost despite the credit agreement being closed. I know that’s a CC but I’m pretty certain the same is true for DCs too.

Might seem rather too obvious, but have they definitely got the numbers right?

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Personally I’d chase HMRC again. They are fairly useless with payments in either direction, sometimes you can pay them, they’ll threaten you with debt collectors because they haven’t received it, and in the same week they’ll ring you up because they found an unknown payment from you and can’t figure what it’s for…

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@Chris_R

The card they sent it to was the one that I paid the tax with originally. I paid my tax bill in December, they attempted the refund at the end of the tax year. But there was no contacting me to confirm any details, they just (supposedly) refunded straight back to the same card, which is apparently their standard way of doing things now - even if you request an alternative.

However, the money definitely never returned to my account. And both HMRC and TSB are arguing that they have nothing to do with the missing money.

For clarification to those asking, the card was cancelled but I left the account open purely because I knew this money was due. So I moved to Monzo when TSB showed just how incompetent they are, but didn’t do a full switch because I didn’t want to risk closing an account that HMRC were supposed to be paying money into.

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HMRC will unfortunately not deal with me any more. They insisted they’ve paid, apparently checked many times, and have now washed their hands of me and won’t do any more.

Relying on this TSB team seems to be the last option after months of chasing back and forth.

Inform them that you will be deducting the amount from next years payment… that should make them listen :wink:

presumably - and it is a lot of presumption :slight_smile: - TSB will investigate and either find it or not , I would always try to escalate the complaint to the next manager up if not resolved in your favour, they will then declare the incident investigated and closed with a case number if they cant find your money - you should be keeping all correspondence with both HMRC and TSB , along with any statements from TSB, with possibly a closing balance on your account as it would seem that this is going to the financial ombudsman next , if you have clear proof that you have not received the payment this should help resolve your case in your favour against TSB as I assume the ombudsman would believe HMRC - you are probably doing this already :slight_smile:

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If you initially paid HMRC with a card, would it be possible to dispute/chargeback that initial transaction?