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Recently, I sold my house that I've been living in for over 20 years. It was almost all paid off, so I got a huge amount of cash in my account. (About 5x my yearly salary).

I bought a new house, and intended to wire all of these proceeds over to the mortgage company for my new house. Unfortunately, I made a typo with the routing number and sent it to the wrong account. So my mortgage company never got it. I followed up with my bank, but they said there's nothing that can be done, because they just followed the instructions I typed in.

To make matters worse, apparently the account that received it was some hateful white supremisist group. (Not going to mention the name here for obvious reasons). Now if you google my name, the first result is now my name in their list of "platinum level donors". This made me sick to my stomach seeing this.

Is there truly nothing that can be done? Am I stuck having lost my life savings to some hateful group?

Jeffer
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1 Answers1

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You will have to pay for an attorney. Initiate a SWIFT recall.

You've already tried the easy thing - simply asking for it back, and that didn't work. They likely don't have a legal right to keep the money, but you'll need a lawyer for that.

Quote from the article

Although you may not be able to reverse the wire transfer, the recipient does not have a right to keep the money. The bank can track down the account holder and may contact him on your behalf and request he return the funds. However, if the account holder cannot be reached and the funds are no longer available, you may not be able to recover the money. You may have to contact an attorney to discuss options, such as personal lawsuit to retrieve your money.

I'm not a lawyer, but if money magically appears in your account, you're not allowed to keep it. You need to notify the bank, who will notify the police and begin an investigation. The process should be similar here.

Immediately hire a lawyer. Have your lawyer immediately send communications on your behalf that the money isn't theirs. Do whatever your lawyer tells you to do.

EDIT

Like the commenters say - I wouldn't contact the organization directly if you've not already, except if your lawyer advises it. That would tip them off and might make the recovery process more complicated.

sevensevens
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