u/ProperAd5138

I'm trying to understand where my money actually is and what my options are.

I sent an international transfer from my own account at TEB (Turkey) to my account at Lunar (Denmark). Based on the GPI I obtained, the path was: TEB (Turkey) → correspondent (HSBC France) → Danske Bank → Lunar (the beneficiary).

(TLDR at the end.)

Lunar doesn't accept incoming transfers from Turkey (Turkey isn't on their approved-country list. I've realized this after I initiated the transfer). By their own terms, a transfer from a non-approved country should be rejected and returned to the sender. Instead, the money was credited to my Lunar account, then reversed a short time later and moved to an internal account. Around the same period, my Lunar account was closed. The funds have never been paid to me, and they have never been returned to the sender. This has been going on for almost four months now.

By Lunar, I was told: the funds were in a "closure deposit"; then that they were "never received"; then "already returned by your own bank"; then that it was Lunar's own funds credited in error and reversed; and most recently that they received only the payment message but no cover funds, and that I should ask the sending bank. They also claimed at one point: "official confirmation from TEB that there were never any funds," but later said they had not been in contact with TEB.

Through TEB, I obtained a MT199. It quotes a message received from Danske Bank, citing the GPI: "the payment was successfully received. If it is still unable to apply, please return funds." So GPI confirms the money was received on the Danish side, which contradicts Lunar's claim that no funds arrived.

What confuses me ais that it looks like an exchange between the correspondent side (HSBC France) and Danske Bank. If the payment was "successfully received" on the Danish side, what would HSBC France even return, since the funds aren't on the their side anymore? And on whose instruction, and under which bank's rules, is Danske saying "if still unable to apply, please return"? The word "still" also suggests an ongoing, known issue.

Lunar says it doesn't have the funds and has no SWIFT record. TEB says GPI shows it was received on the Danish side. Though I couldn't find anything on a Danske–Lunar connection online, so I don't know if Danske is Lunar's correspondent or how the money ended up there (most likely a correspondent). I've filed a formal complaint with the national financial complaint board.

There's an instruction to "return funds if unable to apply." But to whom? Who's responsible for the funds' return, and why? By which policy, based on which bank's rules?

Is Lunar's "we only got the message, not the funds" claim consistent with GPI showing the payment was successfully received by Danske bank?

Why would Danske Bank is involved if Lunar is the beneficiary? Is Danske likely Lunar's correspondent bank, and does that make the funds Danske's to return or Lunar's?

Anything else I should be doing to resolve the situation?

Thanks in advance

TLDR: International transfer from TEB (Turkey) to Lunar (Denmark) got credited then reversed, and my Lunar account was closed around the same time. Lunar doesn't accept transfers from Turkey, so by their own rules it should have been returned to the sender, but it wasn't. Four months later the money is neither paid to me nor returned. GPI confirms it was successfully received on the Danish side (Danske Bank), but Lunar claims it never got the funds, has no record of any return, and told me to ask TEB.

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