EE Just credited £400 to my bank account :O

[cptwhite_uk]

There's no justifiable reason as far as I'm aware. I have a 4G wifi 12 month subscription to them for £23 a month which I signed up for a couple of weeks ago, and was on a rolling 30 day contract before then for £30 a month. Just checked my statement and they've dumped £400 to my account...thoughts?!

[Jowsey]

I would just leave it be for the time being. It's obviously error but you've done nothing wrong.

See if they try and get in contact to take the money?

You could probably have a lot of fun with them

[wazzickle]

Leave it in there and don't say anything and obviously don't spend it for like a year or something

[SeriousSam]

Buy £400 of EE shares with it...

[The Hand]

There's no justifiable reason as far as I'm aware. I have a 4G wifi 12 month subscription to them for £23 a month which I signed up for a couple of weeks ago, and was on a rolling 30 day contract before then for £30 a month. Just checked my statement and they've dumped £400 to my account...thoughts?!

Don't complain or tell EE.. It's their mistake not yours! It might be new graphics card time!

[The Hand]

Buy £400 of EE shares with it...

Or BT shares since they will be taking over EE soon.

[peterb]

IANAL, but...

As the money isn't yours, keeping it would be theft, failing to declare it could be construed as attempted theft.

You should contact your bank, who will probably place it in a suspense account while they sort it out with EE's bank. You could also contact EE.

And You have already publicly announced that has been deposited in error.

Keep a record of all phone calls so you can show you acted correctly.

http://www.theguardian.com/money/201...t-250000-error

[The Hand]

As the money isn't yours, keeping it would be the.ft.b failing to declare it could be construed as attempted theft.

You should contact your bank, who will probably place it in a suspense account while they sort it out with EE's bank. You could also contact EE.

Keep a record of all phone calls so you can show you acted correctly.

http://www.theguardian.com/money/201...t-250000-error

EE can't accuse him of theft, since it's their actions not his and £400 really is relatively small fry in the mobile bill mishap world (after I left Uni I worked at a mobile company for a while). You would not believe the scale and persistence of some foul ups.. .

I've seen customers try and do the honest thing and got screwed over by further mistakes trying to correct the original mistake. Ruined credit history,mortgages falling through you name it, it's happened.

Just on the side of caution though, it's best to not spend it for the time being they can't prove you have noticed so I wouldn't lose any sleep over it.

[peterb]

It's theft in that he is keeping money he is not entitled to. Presumably, that money was intended for someone else who has not received it, so it is theft from them.

I agree that in the grand scheme of of things, it is a trivial amount, but the amount is irrelevant in legal terms!

The safest course is to declare it.

[The Hand]

It's theft in that he is keeping money he is not entitled to. Presumably, that money was intended for someone else who has not received it, so it is theft from them.

I agree that in the grand scheme of of things, it is a trivial amount, but the amount is irrelevant in legal terms!

The safest course is to declare it.

Yea, this might be the best way forward since he has declared it in a public forum now and I don't want advise him to do anything hypothetically "illegal" and bring Hexus.net into disrepute in the eyes of whoever, it's just in the context of my own experience I know certain mobile companies (that shall remain nameless) break the law and get away with it. This really is next to nothing in comparison.

[GoNz0]

Mr White from Sheffields posted publically. Umm yeah that's going to get the fuzz to his door in no time!

[kalniel]

You aren't a lawyer who helped the EU rule that the O2/three merger couldn't go ahead by any chance are you?

[The Hand]

Mr White from Sheffields posted publically. Umm yeah that's going to get the fuzz to his door in no time!

I was just following the principle peterb suggested. I doubt the fuzz are that savvy (or EE for that matter)!

Originally, I was merely pointing out from the point of view that it's not necessarily what's legal and what's not, but whether something can be proved.. that's how corporations/banks etc operate. Laws and taxes are for the little people!

[The Hand]

You aren't a lawyer who helped the EU rule that the O2/three merger couldn't go ahead by any chance are you?

Company perks come in all forms!

[wazzickle]

I mean what would the difference be if £400 in cash came through your letterbox in an EE envelope?

Find it very difficult to believe that not declaring it would be construed as theft

[Saracen]

I mean what would the difference be if £400 in cash came through your letterbox in an EE envelope?

Find it very difficult to believe that not declaring it would be construed as theft

It could. Note, "could", not "would".

The definition of theft requires each of several elements to be proven, but one of them is "appropriates". Essentially, theft is when someone "dishonestly appropriates the property of another with intent to permanently deprive".

What is clear is that the way you acquire property does not have to be inherently dishonest. It's what you do with the rights to that property, and that includes doing anything with it that is inconsistent with your ownership of the rights to that property. Such as spending it.

However, ALL elements of that basic definition would not only have to be met, but proved beyond a reasonable doubt. Such as .... that what you had done was "dishonest".

So .... if I get £400 deposited in my account, but am financially lazy, never check the account and don't realise it's not mine, and/or that there's sufficient balance or transaction throughput that £400 is not going to stand out, then the prosecution might have a tough time proving I'm aware that that 'property' wasn't mine, and so even if I spent it, proving I did it dishonestly is going to be very hard.

If I posted about it on a forum, and the prosecution can produce that post showing I KNEW it wasn't mine, then they could infer that spending it anyway was dishonest. If I'd posted that I knew it wasn't mine, didn't care about whose it was and was going out for a slap-up meal before someone caught on and wanted it back, well, it's pretty clear.

But for it to be theft, ALL those elements, "dishonestly", "appropriates", "intent", "permanently" etc, have to be met.

Spending such money COULD be theft, but there's quite a lot of hard to prove aspects of it to get there.

You can, by the way, steal simply by finding something, such as laying in the road. By default, such items belong to someone unless you have reason to believe they've been deliberately abandoned. And unless they've abandoned their rights to such property, mit is still the property of the owner even if they've lost it. The same applies to that money. Unless there's reason to believe the owner deliberately placed it there, like a "welcome bonus"email or somesuch, then it's pretty clearly there by mistake, and "appropriating" property rights to it, such as by doing anything inconsistent with it not being your property, would be evidence of that part of the definition of theft.

All told, personally, not a game I'd want to play. I have a clean criminal record and I certainly wouldn't put that at risk for £400. Make it £40m and I might be tempted to be searching for offshore bank accounts with a reputation for secrecy, and somewhere to get a fake passport. Preferably, that "somewhere" would have nice beaches and no extradition agreement. But for £400? Not a chance.