I’m beyond frustrated. I have a bill that must be paid. Every time I enter the info on the Sparkasse app, it tells me it doesn’t recognize the account name (doesn’t match the iban).

I’m afraid to just guess it at this point because it’s a fairly large amount of money I can’t afford to lose.

I’ve tried every iteration of the doctor’s names to no avail, the name on the envelope, searched the website for clues, etc.

I’m VERY hard of hearing and twice I’ve called the number to have them hang up on me because of my bad German and being unable to hear the reply well.

I’m just sitting here in frustrated tears.

What do I do? If I enter an incorrect name, will it just not send or get lost in space or something?

I’ve tried emailing them two weeks ago and last week and no answer. This bill is due today and I can’t wait any longer.

And yes, even did the take a pic of the bill thing.

Any advice? I’m sick and I’m tired and I just want to pay my bill 😩

by Munich11

24 comments

  1. Just say that you want to continue regardless? I have the option for that.

  2. Oh, yeah, the verification is going to bite some people really hard, because the account names are often enough not aligned with what they specify. You’re only one of the first to run into these problems.

    Your bank *should* offer you to send the money anyway at your own risk; if you’ve got the IBAN absolutely right, it *should* still arrive then. (And AFAIK, if you ignore the warning, it’s the same system as before verification where it’s your own fault if you send the money into nothingness. But I’m not totally sure on that either.)

    Just had this with my mother this weekend, she also tried every variation of the pharmacy’s probable account holder name. Companies will have to step up and add their account holder names to letterheads and invoices and whatnot.

  3. As long as the IBAN is correct, you can perform the transaction, getting the Name wrong will not make you loose the money.

    Banks matching “Name <-> IBAN” is mandatory for a couple of days now, but you can still override the check.

  4. Ask the Praxis for the correct name if you are unsure. 

    But you should be able to make the transaction even with a wrong name as long as the iban is valid. The App should show you something like „name does not match, do you want to proceed?“

  5. This is something that came into effect a few days ago, banks have to match the account name to the one you enter to prevent fraud. I also think it’s a bit frustrating, specially when dealing with companies, since it might very well be that the company name doesn’t exactly match the name on the account.

    If you German is too bad to be understood on the phone, then maybe you could go there and ask in person?

    I’m not sure if you can still send the money when the name doesn’t match, I had the impression the measure was a “security check” of sorts but that you could send the money either way. If that’s the case then I would just send it if you are sure the IBAN is correct.

  9. Try: Internistische Schwerpunktpraxis Erlangen

    Thats what they wrote in its Impressum.

  10. Mail them again. Tell them you are unable to pay as they did not give you the correct payment details and the deadline is approaching. Maybe call. Don’t worry if you go a couple days over, nothing bad will happen.

    You will not be the first one with this issue and it’s their job to supply the correct payment details so you are able to pay. As holders of a business account a the bank they have surely been informed of this regulatory change that the account holder name needs to match.

  11. Yeah, you have encountered a problem that’s new:

    Banks now have to check whether account name and iban match.

    Most companies will only give you their iban. And up until now that was enough, as the account name did not have to match.

    Basically that means all companies will have to update their payment information. And untill they do it, we will have to fight with the system.

  12. I had this issue last week aswell.

    I had to call them and ask them for what exactly their “Empfängername” – Receiving persons name is.

    It needs to be exact, then it doesnt throw up a warning.

  13. YOU DO NOT NEED NAMES TO MATCH. Recipient name matching is to help you make sure you didn’t make a mistake, you can send to whoever you want. It is a fantastic feature and helps you avoid sending money to the wrong person. Think of the many times you sent an email to the wrong person, now email will tell you “you wrote hello Jim but this email belongs to someone not named Jim. Do you want to send this email anyway?”.

  14. All I know is Sparkasse online banking can be a real ball ache!!

    Can you not go there and pay in reception?

  16. Sadly even invoices with a QR code create a transfer with the wrong name of the account holder.

    Looks like many health providers should eiter fix the names on the bank accounts or fix the QR code generation.

    But the banking app should allow a transfer anyway after accepting the big scary warning. If the IBAN is correct the money will arrive.

  17. ApoBank (Apotheker und Ärztebank) has not fully implemented to new name checking functions. Thus even with completely correct name there are problems. I think it’s dump that a bank solely for professionals that do paper Rechnungen alllll the time is the one that is behind. Now doctors offices and hospital administrations get one call after another with this stuff.

    Just check the IBan and your Verwendungszweck. If both is correct just select send at your own risk. It will arrive. 🙂

  18. In my bank (I guess it’s the same everywhere) , the customers are informed that the name couldn’t be matched with the name stored against the customer(also known as alias), but the customer can still proceed to make the payment.

    The payment should not be stopped even if the name is wrong, this is my understanding.

    So there could be match, close match, no match and some errors (bank not found etc).
    In case of only close match, the customer can choose between the name he had saved and the correct name from the Bankverlag (alias name).

    It’s also possible that some accounts can have multiple Aliases against the IBAN 🙂 , for example Ibans belonging to stadt etc.

  20. Trust the IBAN and not the name.

    I actually had this issue with paying a fine to Bayern Polizei over the weekend. The IBAN and the name didn’t match 🤷🏻‍♀️
    But I double checked everything and the IBAn was correct.

  21. I had same problem paying my credit card bill. I have named it as Xyz credit card on my app, and of course it was giving warning, but you can still pay by making sure IBAN is correct “at your own risk”.

  22. Have you tried to show up in person instead of calling them?

  23. happened to me too. i need to pay the bill, but sparkasse tells me that empfänger doesn’t match the iban. and i’ve tried all kind of names. today i asked the facility to which i need to pay directly, what name should i put and they told me the one i’ve already tried. so i’m going just to pay despite the warning, because otherwise there’s no correct name eventually.

  24. I assume this is because of the “Verification of Payee” law. IBAN is correct, but not the registered name is not. Call the office and get the correct data. Explain why, if asked.

    The bank just checks the name, but they don’t correct it for you.
    The bank will just either accept or decline. The corrections is the responsibility of the sender.

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