So a small company in China that I've worked with the past few months has sent me the payment for my freelance work, but they accidentally wired over 100k (some odd number, not 100k on the dot) too much. This is the first time I've ever worked with them and this is the first payment that I've ever received from them. They sent it from Hang Seng, a Hong Kong bank, but the company itself is in Shanghai, idk if this is out of the ordinary or not. They notified me of the mistake immediately after they sent the money and told me it was suppose to be for an American company, but I live in Canada. I asked them how they could make that big of a mistake when my payment is supposed to be vastly smaller and I'm in a different country, and they said their finance guy got it mixed up and basically yolo'd it or something. They're asking for me to wire back the difference now. The whole situation is a little strange to me.
Now, I've heard of scams with a similar premise before, and I think they're probably not out to scam me, but considering they accidentally sent over 100k to the wrong guy, I don't wanna get fucked somehow by their incompetence if not malice. I've already spoken with my bank through the phone and in person and they've given me different answers. The person over the phone suggested the safest way for me to give the money back is to tell them my bank can't do anything and see if they could speak with their bank and somehow get the transaction reversed on their end, whereas the branches I've visited in person said the sender can't reverse it on their end, so I have to send it back myself, with the sort of attitude basically telling me to "get fucked kid we're not liable if anything happens". I think I'm done with TD after I get this sorted out.
So logically speaking, you'd think banks would be able to reverse international wires for exactly these sort of mistakes right? They can reverse it, right? So for now, I've told them to check with their bank first and see if they could get the transaction reversed. What's my next step if they say they can't? How do I protect myself for the worst case scenario? In what ways can they fuck me if they tried to?
Edit: The account they sent it from is the same account they're asking me to send it back to, so there's nothing strange going on there, at least.
Submitted January 24, 2018 at 07:14AM by persfinanceQ321 http://ift.tt/2DAp8tL
