moral dilema

[aeonf242]

nichomach speaks much wisdom...I'd just leave it in yoru account earning @ 3.20/3.30% per year....One Year = £41.60 ish (£33.28 ish taxed).

he'll get a rep for honesty with the bank and will avoid acquiring a record

I doubt Sainsburys really carry these sort of records on customers, especially as the Bank of Scotland white label them.

when the bank realise the error -

Someone will be red faced at Sainsburys if it's there error or if it's a customers error they'll just think dumb customer......HOWEVER THEY WILL GET THE MONEY BACK MAKE NO MISTAKE!!!!!!!

and they would be very likely to press charges.

I doubt it, they'll probably seek to take civil recovery or just put the frightener on you.......Bad publicity is always a risk if they did charge you

[Bunjiweb]

If it's not his mistake then he wouldn't get in trouble for spending it. He could easily claim he thought it was his money but obviously this has certain legalities, but rest assured they COULDNT press chargers as it's not his fault the money was paid into his account.

THEY messed up not HIM. He shouldnt have to feel guilty about spending it, May I just suggest that he saves it rather than spends it, open a building society or something.

Ben

[nichomach]

You're really not getting this are you, MAS? If he does ANYTHING with the money other than give it back, he will have appropriated the money dishonestly and wrongfully and he will commit a criminal offence. It's not some sort of technicality, or something the bank will overlook; they would be VERY likely to take action over it. I'd also note that not only would he be criminally liable, but a civil action in Torts would also lie against him for conversion were he to follow any of your suggestions - which would result in the money being claimed back. Plus interest. Plus costs. What you are counselling this friend of Russ's to do is to commit a variety of criminal and civil wrongs, and I'd point out that that in itself is a criminal offence in the event that he were to follow your advice (aiding, abetting, counselling or procuring; the accused is charged as a principal in the second degree in the commission of the offence, and is liable to the same sentence as the person who actually commits the offence). Now it's been a fair few years since I got my honours in law, but if you'd like a more up-to-date opinion I'd be happy to refer the thread to my other half who's a senior lecturer in law and criminology and she'll tell you the same thing.

[MAS]

Not getting it? You're talking to someone with an Oxbridge law degree, if you want to get technical. Where does your other half lecture? I know the legalities. I also know that we live in the real world, and people dont press charges over every infringement. You might also try reading my whole post....like the qualification that reads 'Unless he'd been abjectly dishonest. Evidenced by..um....posting on the internet claiming it's not his money....ahem....'

Given the time, money, technicalities (and actually theft is one area where technicalities are more common), plus bad publicity, they wouldnt bother. I'll put a wager on it if you like.

And if you think I'm guilty of complicity for posting a suggestion, you're nuts. My actions are WAY below those required.

It's also nice to see that I'm the one who's been berated, although I wasn't the first to suggest the savings option.

I'm not really interested in the legal position, anyone with half a brain can see that taking something which doesn't belong to you could be theft. But IIRC the title of the thread is 'moral dilemma', and I'm afraid that in this situation I don't see anything immoral.

[nichomach]

Not getting it? You're talking to someone with an Oxbridge law degree, if you want to get technical. Where does your other half lecture? I know the legalities. I also know that we live in the real world, and people dont press charges over every infringement.

I'll get her to mail you if you like, although I'd rather nor post her personal details here; by the way, her Masters is from Cambridge - does that count? And if you're aware of the technicalities, then you should be aware of s5(4) of the '68 Theft Act:

"Where a person gets property by another’s mistake, and is under an obligation to make restoration (in whole or in part) of the property or its proceeds or of the value thereof, then to the extent of that obligation the property or proceeds shall be regarded (as against him) as belonging to the person entitled to restoration, and an intention not to make restoration shall be regarded accordingly as an intention to deprive that person of the
property or proceeds."

In other words, theft; and in this case it would be theft of a substantial amount of money.

Given the time, money, technicalities (and actually theft is one area where technicalities are more common), plus bad publicity, they wouldnt bother. I'll put a wager on it if you like.

Fine, because EVERY business ignores people stealing £1300 from them, don't they?

And if you think I'm guilty of complicity for posting a suggestion, you're nuts. My actions are WAY below those required.

No, if he commits the offence then you WILL be liable for an offence under the Accessories and Abettors Act 1861, albeit that prosecution is unlikely.

It's also nice to see that I'm the one who's been berated, although I wasn't the first to suggest the savings option.

My apologies, my intention was not to berate you, as such, but there's an awful lot of utter rubbish being spoken here about what Russ's friend is entitled to do, and it's dangerous rubbish at that. And given your legal background, you at least should damn well KNOW that moving the mnoney would constitute dishonest appropriation and therefore theft, so why the h-e-double-hockey-sticks are you advising him to do so?

I'm not really interested in the legal position, anyone with half a brain can see that taking something which doesn't belong to you could be theft.

IS theft, MAS, IS theft.

But IIRC the title of the thread is 'moral dilemma', and I'm afraid that in this situation I don't see anything immoral.

That's arguable, but the fact is that quite a few people here are advocating that Russ's friend adopt various utterly illegal courses of action and are going so far as to suggest that he's entitled to do so. That's wrong and dangerous.

Now, I personally would rather that Russ's friend avoided prosecution and civil liability. You apparently don't care whether he does or not.

[nichomach]

nichomach speaks much wisdom...I'd just leave it in yoru account earning @ 3.20/3.30% per year....One Year = £41.60 ish (£33.28 ish taxed).


I doubt Sainsburys really carry these sort of records on customers, especially as the Bank of Scotland white label them.

My apologies; I should have made clear that the sort of record that concerned me was not one that Sainsbury's might keep, but the sort that gets held by the CRO.

Someone will be red faced at Sainsburys if it's there error or if it's a customers error they'll just think dumb customer......HOWEVER THEY WILL GET THE MONEY BACK MAKE NO MISTAKE!!!!!!!

Much wisdom spoken there...

I doubt it, they'll probably seek to take civil recovery or just put the frightener on you.......Bad publicity is always a risk if they did charge you

There's no guarantee of that; I'd think any business would regard the theft of £1300 as being serious enough to notify the police, and as for bad publicity, how much would there realistically be? The bank can turn around and state, quite rightly, that the person charged dishonestly appropriated money to which they knew they were not entitled, i.e. committed theft, and why shouldn't they be charged?

[aeonf242]

BACK ON TOPIC THEN:

I think Morally he should just own up, honesty is the best policy.

Or at the very least simply leave the money there earning interest.

What if the £1,300 was supposed to be paid into a charity account......someone could be waiting for £50,000 to pay for cancer treatment in America......only the balance is £48,700.........So you'd be killing someone.....

[nichomach]

I think Morally he should just own up, honesty is the best policy.

Well said, aeon.

[blockers]

Just to check....the guy never paid in £13.00 or £130.00 or even £1.30 and somewhere along the line someone accidentally happened to put a couple of 00's on it?

I would keep it for a while longer, and spend/transfer it to another account...it but make sure he has the money to pay it back.

If nothing happens with a while longer i'd have thought it would be safe in his account as his money.

[MAS]

Just call them. That's the best thing. Either way, he'll find out exactly what's going on with the money.

[da_ging]

ok i dont know exactly how this works like but surely if the money was put in by cash 2 months ago the person now missing 1300 quid will obviously have noticed and you would expect have told sainsbury and perhaps even got it sorted ,what im saying is ,is there any record from paying in a cdt that would say that this 1300 was payed to your m8 and not the proper owner?


oh and ask at a different branch hypothetically about it see what they say?

[daniel_owen_uk]

Its easy to assume that but in the real world it could be an organisation that doesn't track its orders well, or somewhere that has long delivery times, or any variety of circumstances that would mean that maybe this money wont be missed.

Personally I would remove it slowly put it in a high interest savings account and not worry about it, if they enquire about it pay it back.

Yes IT's illegal but so is doing 80 on the m1.

[MasterFlash]

I would call them, its not worth the hassle.

[Skii]

I would keep it, but thats just little old evil me. In the grand scale of things that amount of money isn't going to make a jot of difference to anyone, I wouldn't see it as theft from any individual (rest assured if it DID belong to an indiviual as opposed to a Multi-million pound supermarket chain I would make every effort to find the rightful owner) however in this case the rightful recipient of this money would be re-imbursed, of this there is no doubt.

See my problem is that I never check my account balance NEVER (lazy bloke thing) now if someone is going to mistakenly deposit a cash sum into my account, if it wasn't for my other half who does the banking I'd probably spend it oblivious to the fact that it was there. Now i'll be damned if anyone is going to take me to court for a crime I committed unknowingly, for a start they would have to prove I knew that money was there and that it wasn't rightly mine - good luck on that

Anyway - i'm off to burn in the hell-fires of damnation

Muhahahahahaha

[aeonf242]

WHAT's THE POINT IN WITHDRAWING TO ANOTHER ACCOUNT? JUST LEAVE IT WHERE IT IS THE INTEREST RATE IS QUITE REASONABLE AT SAINSBURYS.

EVEN A HIGH INTEREST ACCOUNT WILL ONLY GET YOU AN EXTRA 1-1.5% FOR THE ILL GOTTEN GAINS...AND BY MOVING THE MONEY YOU'RE SHOWING COMPLICITY......

TBH, EVEN IF IN 4 YEARS SOMEONE SPOTS IT THE BANK WILL BE BACK FOR IT'S MONEY.

[RVF500]

I'm sure one of our learned friends will correct me here but if he sits and does nothing should the bank realise their mistake and recall the money I would have thought that legal action would be unlikely. As far as I am aware Robo cop doesn't preside over our legal system just yet and a certain amount human judgement still comes into play. Providing that once Sainsburys got the money back they didn't decide to then compound the issue by taking legal action. Once again IMHO it would seem a pointless excercise on their part.

Also, is there not a point in time at which he would be entitled to lay claim to that money in his account? If so, just leave it there and enjoy the nice numbers on his bank statement. Personally I don't have time to sit and browse through legal tomes to figure out which subsection of what law pertains to this and quite frankly I would probably glaze over with boredom long before I found the answer. It's bad enough trawling through the technical documentation I use at work.

So there's my answer. I'd sit and see what happened next.

And before anyone jumps on my case I was overpaid by over £5000 once and 3 or 4 months later was 'informed' and simply gave the money back (which I'd kept to one side) with no further complications. Would I have kept it if nothing had been said? Damn right I would have.