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Money arrived in my account from someone I do not know, and now they are asking me to send it back — what is actually going on?
About £600 landed yesterday from a name I do not recognise. This morning a message arrived saying it was sent by mistake and asking me to transfer it back to a different account than the one it came from.
My instinct says this is a scam, but I cannot explain the mechanism, and I do not want to keep money that genuinely is not mine either.
What I would like to understand:
- If it really was a mistake, why would they ask me to send it to a different account?
- What is the risk to me if I just send it back?
- What is the correct thing to do with money that lands in your account unasked?
@cap_table_kerem · 2h ago · 2 replies
The different account is the entire scam, and it is the detail that tells you everything.
The money that arrived is very often stolen — taken from a compromised account, or pushed through by someone who will later report the payment as fraudulent. When that report lands, the sending bank reverses or recalls the original payment and it comes straight back out of your account.
If you had returned it to the same account it came from, you would be square: money in, money out, and the reversal takes back what is already gone. By sending it somewhere else, you have made two separate transactions. The reversal still removes the incoming money, and your outgoing payment to the third account is gone for good. You are down the full amount, and you moved criminal proceeds on their behalf.
That is why they need it to be a different account, and it is why a genuine mistaken payment never asks for that.
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@clearing_house_cleo · 2h ago
So the "send it back" framing is doing the work — it feels like undoing something, and it is actually a second, unrelated payment. That never occurred to me.
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