Dear Moneyist, For the past 3 years, my daughter’s loan has been paid with my father’s checking account, not my daughter’s checking account. What should I do?
My daughter took out a bank personal loan three years ago and I had to co-sign the loan due to her age and lack of credit. The bank handled the loan documentation as per normal protocol, and before finalizing asked my daughter if she wanted automatic deduction monthly from her checking account which shaved off a half of a percentage point on the rate, so she agreed.
Fast forward to approximately six months ago. My father and I were reviewing his monthly expenses, we saw a deduction made for X amount and it was listed as loan payment. He has no outstanding loans so it took us quite a while to figure out what had been being taken out each month . My issue, and of course my father’s issue is the bank erred in putting his account number as the checking account from which the loan was to be paid from instead of my daughter’s account. Isn’t there some responsibility from the bank to also assist in making things right?I have questions, and you don’t need to be Inspector Poirot to answer them.
If your father’s bank-account number was not given on the original paperwork, the bank made the mistake. If that’s the case, given that your father is not a third party in this loan, the bank should absolutely make his account whole again. If a bank deposits money into the wrong account — $1 million windfall — and the person spends the money, the bank can come after that person for the money. It was not their money to spend. The opposite is also true.