How to pay for a mistaken transfer when the police are not present

According to Mr. Binh, after receiving the mistakenly transferred money, someone sent another 100,000 VND with the message "return", but he was afraid of being scammed so he did not respond.

Then, a person called him, claiming to be a bank employee of the wrong transfer party, wanting to help the customer get their money back. Therefore, it was not the hotline number, Mr. Binh did not trust it and said that he would only work when there were 4 parties, including him, the person who transferred the money by mistake, both banks and the police.

Another person who claimed to be an employee of the bank he was using contacted him and asked him to transfer the money back.

His bank then informed him that they had locked his card and said that the two banks had worked together and had a document from the police, but that it was a confidential document that could not be shown. The police would not come to resolve the matter and the person who had transferred the card by mistake was in Ho Chi Minh City, while he was in Hanoi.

Therefore, Mr. Binh was required by his bank to go to the branch to unlock his account and return the money.

Mr. Binh did not know what to do. On one hand, he was worried that if the police did not witness it, he would be in danger. But if he did not follow the request, and the "secret document" was real, he was also afraid of getting into trouble.

Lawyer Pham Quoc Bao (Bao Ngoc Law Firm, Hanoi) assessed that recently, transferring money to someone else's account by mistake has been quite common, partly due to the lack of caution of the transferor.

In case of wrong money transfer, The lawyer said that Clause 4, Article 32 of Circular 37/2016/TT-NHNN dated December 30, 2016 of the State Bank stipulates the steps that the person who transfers money by mistake must take as follows:

- Immediately contact the bank and report this incident, then go directly to the bank branch or transaction office you are using to make a request for the bank to support handling the erroneous transfer transaction.

- Provide complete transaction information, documents such as citizen identification, bank card, money transfer receipt... for the bank to check the transaction.

- The teller will then look up and verify the customer's transaction history. If the transfer is indeed a mistake, the bank will proactively contact the recipient account holder and request that the transferred amount be returned to the sender.

The lawyer analyzed that when receiving information from the account owner about the wrong transfer, the teller will contact Mr. Binh to request the return of the transferred amount. However, according to the information Mr. Binh provided, the bank's calls were all from personal mobile numbers, so Mr. Binh's concern about transferring the money back to the wrong person is completely justified.

To ensure that the money is transferred to the right person and to avoid further claims, and to avoid any future problems, lawyer Bao advised Mr. Binh to go to the headquarters or transaction office of the bank where he opened his account to work directly or contact the police to request support in confirming the origin of the money and instructing him on how to handle it.

Mr. Binh also reported that many individuals called to harass him and demand money, so he thought that the bank he was using had disclosed his personal information.

Regarding this, Clause 3, Article 14 of the Law on Credit Institutions 2010 stipulates information security as follows: "Credit institutions and foreign bank branches are not allowed to provide information related to accounts, deposits, deposited assets, and transactions of customers at credit institutions and foreign bank branches to other organizations and individuals, except in cases where there is a request from a competent state agency as prescribed by law or with the consent of the customer".

Lawyer Bao then stated that only in cases where there is a request from a competent state agency (investigative agency, prosecutor's office, court or civil enforcement agency) or with the customer's consent, can the bank provide customer information to others.

If it does not fall into one of the two above cases, providing bank customer information to a third party is against the law. The bank will be responsible for any damages related to the disclosure of customer information.

If Mr. Binh does not comply with the bank's request, the lawyer said, it will not be considered as appropriating or using another person's property without basis. Mr. Binh has not transferred the money back because he wants to verify the exact information of the owner of the money that was mistakenly transferred. "Therefore, your actions cannot be considered as violating the obligation to return or intentionally not returning it to the owner," the lawyer said.

In cases of intentional failure to return the property after the owner, legal manager or responsible agency has requested to receive the property back according to the provisions of law, the fine will be 10-50 million VND, non-custodial reform for up to 2 years or imprisonment from 3 months to 2 years (if the amount of money possessed is between 10-200 million VND, according to Article 176 of the Penal Code).