'Bank has made an error in your favour' Can I keep it?

An entirely hypothetical situation you understand… 🙄

Went into the bank to transfer balance of savings account to new current account. Balance is £x00 higher than I expected. I query this and suggest there might be a mistake. Girl behind till checks a few things and seems to think all is OK. I mutter something about not being very good with sums, she laughs, transfers money, closes account, and I’m away scot-free.

Is there a time limit after which they can’t claim money back? Given my (hypothetical, of course) history with the bank, I’ve no real qualms about keeping the money (plus there’s always a chance I’ve actually got my sums wrong…). Just don’t want to spend it and find a big hole in my account when they take it back.

Don’t hypothetically touch it yet. If it’s still there after a month, then hypothetically spend it.

You sure all you hypothetical DDs have been paid etc, hypothetically.

Leave it where it is for a good while (months) and be prepared to pay it back in the future. i.e. If you can’t afford to pay it back, don’t spend it.

Is the extra £x00 your money? Otherwise…………

Open a new account at a different bank, transfer money and close old account
Give old bank a list of charges for letters, calls and so on
Tit them around endlessly while charging for all letters,phonecalls ect,

Open a new account at a different bank, transfer money and close old account

Well happily the whole point of the exercise (hypothetically, etc. etc.) was to close the account, and I’m now banking with someone else. Think I’ll dump it on the credit card balance and just wait. Interested to know if there’s a legal time frame after which its mine, is it a month?

Is it monopoly?

Not the same but I had a client pay nearly £10k in cash, had to have it all counted in the bank even though it was wrapped in the official “it’s been counted properly and signed for” bags. Turns out there was 2x £50 in with all the £20’s. Bank tried to call where the money originated from without any luck, so handed me £60 🙂 there was a charity tin on the side so spilt it 50/50 for karma.

charity tin on the side so spilt it 50/50 for karma

Noted 😉

Paid in a cheque over the counter and was mistakenly credited with £30,000 instead of £3000. A letter from the bank arrived the very next day explaining everything (like I hadn’t noticed).

They are lightening fast when they need to be

Rocketman – hope you charged them for opening the letter?

They didn’t even give me 24 hrs interest on the 30k 🙁

Doesn’t the law say something to the tune of, it’s an offence if you couldn’t reasonably be expected to notice? Ie, if you’re expecting 100 quid and 110 gets paid in you’re golden, but if you’re expecting 100 and receive 10000 you’ll have ’em chopped off if you go and spend it? Or something?

Maybe someone did transfer and got the account number wrong.

Although it’s nice to have free money, it is also stealing.

Just don’t spend it.

Whilst we are talking hypotheticals – it could also hypothetically happen that you go to the bank and withdraw £1500 cash to pay for a 2nd hand bike you bought and discover a few weeks later that the teller added rather than deducted the amount from your balance. You could in that situation hypothetically use the difference to pay for the mother of all engagement rings and earn a lifetime of brownie points. Happy days – hypothetically.

this happend to me a couple of years back. I transferred the free money into my savings account (with the same bank) didn’t touch it for about 3 months.

Then spent it!

no questions were asked. it was about £400 from memory.

There is an offence of dishonestly retaining a wrongful credit with a top prize of a ten year vacation.

I had a hypothetical mate who once got given a loan of £16k for a car, bank paid the £16k twice to him and never noticed. a free hypothetical£16k!!

There is an offence of dishonestly retaining a wrongful credit with a top prize of a ten year vacation.

Ha, well thats the dilemma isn’t it, given that there is actually a (slim) chance the balance was legit, how much do I have to question it to make my retention of it ‘honest’?

Edit: Hypothetically, of course.

the Theft Act s.24 states that you must … take such steps as are reasonable in the circumstances to secure that the credit is cancelled.

Dunno really. Obviously the clerk told you it was all ok, but it sounds like you’re still not fully convinced there hasn’t been an error.

Check your statement maybe, see if that tells you where it’s come from?

My wife got overpaid by about a grand a few months back. She’s told her manager twice, told payroll, and it’s still there because no one has bothered their arse to get back to her.

EDIT Obviously I mean your hypothetical statement.

There is an offence of dishonestly retaining a wrongful credit with a top prize of a ten year vacation.

Free money AND a holiday?

Day just gets better and better!

If it’s £3K to a Nat West account, then it’s mine! 👿

I think there is a 3year cut-off point. Was in the same bind last year when we bought our car. We bought it used from a BMW dealer and paid £12k for it. I went into the bank the day before we were going to pick it up thought best to mention there was going to be a 12 grand debit card transaction at said dealership. After much faffing they finally got the picture and allowed me to spend my own money!

so, went to pick the car up, were a little surprised when I told them how I wanted to pay. Turns out their card machine was down due to IT servicing and would we mind going over the way to the mini garage to do it there? So, card went through first time and drove off, happy days.

checked my account tuesday (picked it up on saturday), money was still there, was surprised. checked it the following monday, still there. check it 3 months later! still there! was a day away from transferring it to my savings account (for safe keeping of course) when it was taken. 14 weeks later. shit.

Its not yours therefore you cannot spend it, theyll soon take it off you.

It could also hypothetically happen that you take out an interest free deal on a shiny new 1500 pound bike and never hear anything about the finance agreement ever again…

I think the info. you need is here, re. un-just enrichment.

APF

There are some hypothetically lucky people on here! 🙂

If it’s £3K to a Nat West account, then it’s mine!

That would be spectacularly coincidental!

If I hypothetically said I hypothetically want a hypothetical 80% of your hypothetical windfall or else I’ll tell the hypothetical bank, what, hypothetically, are you gonna do about it? That’s a hypothetical question of course.

there is potentially an offence, however the fact that you have highlighted it to the bank would point against you retaining it as being dishonest (dishonesty test is R v Ghosh, what a reasonable person would consider as honest). Youve taken reasonable steps to highlight a potential error to the bank and you cant be sure it is an error. If you’d said nothing that would have been dishonest.

Criminal matter aside if the bank realise there is an error you can bet theyll come after you for it, in which case I would have thought the 6 year rule for financial limitations would apply (but I’m on more solid ground with criminal not civil law).

Hypothetically, talking about it on the internet is probably not a good tactical move.

Hypothetically, etc, if it came to a situation where vague admissions on the internet became relevant, I’d have already given it back, although frankly I suspect I’ll be giving it back anyway, I like to think I inhabit the moral high ground in most instances, but when its a large corporate bank its quite easy to persuade oneself that morally, anything goes 😕

Still trying to unearth the statements for the relevant months…

As I understand it, you’re not doing anything wrong if money is erroneously paid into your account and you leave it there, but as soon as you withdraw it or spend it you are breaking the law. So the only lawful thing you can actually do with the money is hand it back. If you want to quietly hang on to it and see if they ask for it back you have to keep it in that account, ferreting it away elsewhere could get you in trouble.

S24aof the Theft act.

24A. Dishonestly retaining a wrongful credit
(1) A person is guilty of an offence if-
(a) a wrongful credit has been made to an account kept by him or in respect
of which he has any right or interest;
(b) he knows or believes that the credit is wrongful; and
(c) he dishonestly fails to take such steps as are reasonable in the circumstances to
secure that the credit is cancelled.
(2) References to a credit are to a credit of an amount of money.

But then… If you say to the bank “This looks wrong” and they say “Nah it’s fine” could that not be said to be taking the reasonable steps?