If The Bank Accidentally Gives You $11,000 And You Won't Give It Back, You're Gonna Get Arrested
"Bank error in your favor" may help you out in Monopoly, but in real life — you gotta give the money back. One New York man didn't agree, and now he's been arrested and has been charged with grand larceny.
According to Newsday, a police report says that the man withdrew $11,270 over a five-month period that "did not belong to him."
"A bank teller had erroneously deposited these funds into the defendant's account. Capital One Bank . . . contacted the defendant on numerous occasions asking the defendant to return the funds, but received no response," the report said
Cops: Bank customer arrested after refusing to return money [Newsday via Gothamist]
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On one hand my inner child is screamin' his head off "Keep the money!" but on the other if it's not yours, it's stealing. Granted, this is Capital One, but it's still stealing.
That was not smart.
Smart is leaving it in the account, and making sure you withdraw all the interest it accrues. I could be wrong, but it isn't your responsibility to report the error, it is just your responsibility to return the money. So, keep the interest as a finder's fee.
Now, as far as moving the money to a higher interest account, now that might actually be construed as stealing, even if you kept it on hand to give back at a minutes notice.
It took them 5 months to realize that $11,270 was put into the incorrect account?!
Kind of messed up. If this was two people in civil court the judge would probably rule that the error was the mistake of the plaintiff and therefore his fault. However, because we are dealing with a corporation this goes to criminal court and the man is charged with a crime? Not saying he did the right thing i just don't like that the corporation has more of an ability to get there money back than a normal person.
Stimulus JACKPOT! It would be tempting but you don't have to be a genius to figure out they're going to coming looking for it sooner or later.
I need that image on a t-shirt, stat.
There's no way that I would not contact the bank if $11K magically appeared in my account. If they refused to believe me when I told them it was a mistake I'd tell them that I want it in writing that they are gifting me this money, stick it in a high interest account, and still not touch it for when they finally go 'Oops!'.
Also, I don't think you can say that "No response" = "refusal".
I don't understand, banks can take the money directly out of your account (like they do for NSF, debits, etc) so why couldn't they do the same here?
@aces89: You missed the part where he knew the money wasn't his, and took it. Personal responsibility FTW! It went from being a banking error to a guy thinking somehow he deserved the money, and stealing it. It had nothing to do with the bank being able to transfer the money out - the man chose to steal.
@vgeroh: I thought comments in my home paper's website were ignorant. Do those that live underneath bridges have nothing better to do with their time than put asinine comments on blogs?
@aces89: Yeah, he knew it was an error and didn't correct it. The right play here would be to tell the bank about it and if they don't listen (happens a lot) then you move it to it's own account so you won't accidentally spend it and remind them about it periodically until they figure it out. If you're lucky, they'll decide that you're entitled to the interest since it was their mistake and you made a good faith effort to inform them.
If this ever happens to me, I'm putting those funds in an interest-bearing account of some kind. When they come looking for them, I'll give them their dollars back...but I made interest.
...unless that's against the law, in which case I'll have a temper tantrum on the floor.
You have 17 new messages.
First New Message:
Hi, yeahhhh, this is Capital One. I'm gonna need you to come in on Saturday and return those funds we accidentally deposited in your account. That'd be super.
Second New Message:
Yeahhhhhh, hi. It's Capital One. It's about ten o' clock, uh, on Saturday, wondering where you are.
Next New Message:
Yeah, hi, it's Capital One again. I just wanted to make sure you knew that we, uh, opened at the usual time this morning. It, uh, isn't a half day or anything like that. So if you could, uh, get here with that $11,000 we deposited in your account, that would be terrific.
@YouDidWhatNow?: Good Idea. And no, I dont think they can do anything more than just ask for the money back. You could have used it to bet on the horses, doubled it, and then give back the original amount and it would be cool.
Though in more practical terms, they would ask for it fairly soon, and I dont think any place will bear you non-trivial interest in a week. Esp with todays rates.
He should not be charged. The bank spent over $11,000 over a five month period.
The bank was in the wrong by negligence over a lasting time period, continually making the same mistake. This man took money out of HIS account,THERE BY COVERING THE BANKS MISTAKE. Yes he should pay it back, but on the other hand the bank should pay him a commission on their mistake. He would not have taken it with out the bank screwing up on a continual bases.. IF we screw up they are quick to charge us for a mistake ,so the same holds true for the bank with no charges to the account holder.... IF they preess the charges I hope he finds a way to sue the bank for negligence and unreasonable arrest and prosecution.
@itiswhatitis: They could, but it would cause a shit storm about unauthorized transactions and stuff like that.
I can even see consumerist itself saying that that would be wrong.
What would have happened if you withdrew the errant funds and took them to the police. Would the lost property rule apply then?
Well, this one took 5 months apparently...even trivial interest would be reasonable for the effort involved over 5 months. Open a high-interest checking account even...get, what, 3-4% on it for a little while? Might as well do somehting with it.
...other than bet it on the ponies. But good luck with that.
@shepd: Yes, but the year is 2009. The concept of interest on funds left us about a decade ago. Or at least that is what it seems!
@pecan 3.14159265: They had 5 months to transfer the money back and correct their error, but they had no idea it was missing... for five months. You're a national bank and you're letting thousands of dollars slip through the cracks completely unnoticed? Personal responsibility goes both ways.
This also means that whatever the $11k was intended for it didn't get there so did they just not investigate it? Did they just pull money from somewhere else without trying to fix the problem? This is not 5 month investigation worthy. Someone majorly dropped the ball and for the bank to not only be able to walk away from this but actually bring charges against someone else does not sit right with me at all.
@aces89: "because we are dealing with a corporation this goes to criminal court and the man is charged with a crime?"
No. This goes to criminal court because the man allegedly committed a criminal act. Anybody (corporation or private individual) can go to the cops when they feel they've been the victim of a criminal act.
@YouDidWhatNow?: Even in "high interest" savings accounts, its more like 1.5-1.75% interest.
And the say that the bank contacted him repeatedly about the money. So I am guessing the first contact happened much before 5th month.
My problem with this isn't that this particular person is getting charged for theft, but with the hypocrisy of charging this man for theft when the police would NEVER charge somebody at the bank with theft if they erroneously charged fees and would not give them back.
If they are going to charge this man, then the next time a bank won't refund fees without a 6-month ordeal, then somebody at the bank should be charged as well.
It's not that they don't have the means to do so, it's that they "can't" take it in the same way I can't literally reach into the pocket of someone who owes me money and take the cash.
It would go to the heart of the account agreement where the client and bank are expected to inform each other of errors usually within a certain period. If you were expecting 11000 into your account and it never showed up you would expect the bank to deposit same funds. Much more interesting is that my Sister in law transfered a mutual fund from one company to another, they did it twice about 16 months ago, the mistake was realized back in December and they wanted the dollar value back which would have been almost equal to the whole shebang at that point. The eventual agreement was to return the current value of the overpayment.
What would have happened if he'd had a Tax Lien against him and the IRS had levied his account?
I think its complete BS. Say a company sends you a product by mistake, then demands you pay for it. Isn't the law on the consumer's side that they don't have to return nor pay for the product? If that's the case, why is it any different for a bank? The consumer didn't request/demand the money.
@Smashville_makes his own comments at home:
No, seriously - this seems to me an incredibly obvious conclusion to this story, and I'm questioning what type of consumer - good or otherwise - would think they would be allowed to keep bank error money. Perhaps my initial comment was a bit lacking on details, but that's what I was getting at.
@TinkishDelight: It's not clear to me whether it took them five months to realize it, or whether they badgered him about it for five months before finally suing him. I suspect the latter.
@GitEmSteveDave_♥'sRenegadeIrishman: I will now permanently associate Capital One with Bill Lumbergh.
@TinkishDelight: Not personal responsibility, but corporate responsibility.
Also as you said "national bank". 11K is peanuts.
Moreover, the bank contacted the customer multiple times. I am guessing the first contact happened much before the 5 month period.
Also money does not have to be destined to go anywhere for it to end up somewhere. Could just have been a mistake and 11K was deposited from the bank.
@YouDidWhatNow?: Find out from the bank how long it will be before charges are pressed, and then drop it in a 3 or 6 month CD.
@LordofBacon: No, he withdrew it over a period of 5 months. It slowly dwindled, but it was there.
@MostlyHarmless: I don't see why they can't reverse a deposit. They do it all the time for bounced checks. They let old debtors take funds from accounts without recourse. How many times has there been a story on here where the bank basically tells the customer the only way to stop the recurring charge is to close the account (and sometimes they say even then they may incur NSF fees) even with the customer calling and asking for intervention? They don't give two shakes about authorization.
I think by the time they realized what had happened it was gone. They probably recovered what they could get from his account, maybe even put a freeze on it, but it wasn't close to the amount they deposited.
@gpreston: There's a difference between sending you an unsolicited product, and sending you money by mistake. If the situation were reversed -- the bank had mistakenly taken money from your account -- I'm sure you'd demand it back even if it took you five months to notice.
@rpm773:
Win.
"So, I understand that this is your money, and you want it back, but...how long before you actually take me to court?"
@YouDidWhatNow?: Yeah, for it to bear more than like $3.75, you'd have to put it into some sort of locked account which would penalize you for withdrawing early...
Although, let's be honest, we'll never be lucky enough to be awarded $11,000 :(
At least the bank tried to get the money back. One time, I wrote a check to another party. Their bank paid the check, but never sent the check to my bank to get their money. It's been in limbo ever since. My bank said there's nothing they can do, unless the other bank initiates something.
@MostlyHarmless: Something similar (with a far smaller amount) happened to me when I was 19. It was only $40, but I didn't touch it for two months, after which it went away. I didn't go into the bank to take care of it because I was 19.
My father and I have the same first and last name but his middle initial comes before me in the alphabet. I had to change banks twice because my deposits done inside the bank were credited to his account several times. It shouldn't happen, but it does (human error, laziness).
@gpreston: It's different because you have a contract with the bank which probably says that you should report errors. It's different because this was not a transfer of goods. And where's that law that says you don't have to return nor pay for the product that was mistakenly sent to you? I'd like to see that. I thought you had a duty to keep the goods in safekeeping until the rightful owner or sender claimed the goods.
11K is big money. If someone deposited that in my account I would have sleepless nights. And i could never spend it because i would just know that the day i spend it, the bank will want it back.