Wrong fund transfer

1 year ago

I am ICICI bank (Chennai) customer holding SB account for past 15 years, by mistake I done IMPS transfer through ICICI bank mobile app of Rs 1.5 Lakhs to Canara bank (Bangalore) customer instead of sending to another canara bank customer.

I called ICICI customer care immediately and they registered complaint(icici also raised chargeback request in NPCI portal to lien mark the transaction) and sent complaint number through SMS to my registered mobile number, I sent the transaction receipt to canara bank customer and called him and explained about this incident, he is very surprised and told that he did not use the account for past 3+ years due to covid and the mobile number registered with bank is not in use and debit card also expired and he told he will also intimate to canara bank, he sent email(from registered email id) to canara bank on the same day about my call and about this wrong fund transfer by mistake, he also given reversal consent in email to reverse the money to respective ICICI bank customer, he also mentioned his latest mobile number which he is using.

Next day I sent mail to Canara bank about this issue along with the transaction receipt. No reply from Canara bank.

I sent multiple emails to ICICI including nodal officer they asked me to wait 35 days, since they already raised NPCI request and canara bank has to act on the request.

Based on my request, receiver sent muliple emails and call to canara bank and did not get any response, finally canara bank picked the call and asked him to visit branch.(Time taken so far is 2 weeks in order to get 1st reply from canara bank)

After receiver visited branch, there canara bank manager explained that he had outstanding balance of 90,000 due to ECS charges so bank deducted 90K from 1.5 laksh and only 60,000 available and canara bank asked him to pay the money(90K) from him, so that they can transfer 1.5 lakhs to ICICI bank.

At this point only receiver came to know that he has so much of negative balance due to ECS charges.

Now receiver sent mail by copying canara bank nodal officer about this and given hand written reversal consent through email, since the money received by him not intended to him and asked to reverse.

Now canara bank branch manager replied to his email with the explanation given to him when he met the branch.

Receiver forwarded that email which he got from canara bank to me and I asked help from ICICI bank by copying Canara&ICICI bank managers and nodal officers but no reply from Canara bank or ICICI bank, after I requested ICICI bank branch multiple times, ICICI branch DBM sent email to Canara bank about this wrong transfer and asked to reverse the money. No reply from Canara bank.


After 35 days, ICICI closed my complaint stating that comment given by canara bank on NPCI portal is "Customer is not contactable".
I too got email from ICICI stating, "Customer is not contactable to get the debit consent".


Question here is though receiver given his updated mobile number in all his emails and done email conversation through his registered email id and receiver already given consent through email, how canara bank can tell "Customer is not reachable".

Another question is, can the bank has rights to debit this wrongly tranfered amount to adjust the negative balance? complaint already given by sender and receiver also mentioned the money received by him is not intended to him.

Now I done complaint to RBI ombudsman by attaching all email proofs and waiting for it's reply.

Please suggest, am I in the right direction and need your suggestion to get my money back.

Thanks in advance.