Originally published at: Oops! A UK bank accidentally gave customers $175 million — but what better timing than Christmas? | Boing Boing
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When this happens to me the rules are that I keep the money.
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UK law is quite clear on this. If you are incorrectly credited money and refuse to return it, then you can be charged with ‘retaining wrongful credit’ under the Theft Act 1968 with a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.
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There are always job openings for COBOL programmers.
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Yeah, that’s true in the US, too. Except, apparently, when you accidentally give a corporation almost a billion dollars… Being subject to laws is only for the little people.
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For 2,000 people, that’s still plenty of money. Perhaps these are not the folks I would normally sympathize with.
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a sant by tender
The Revlon/Citibank fact pattern is pretty easily distinguished.
The money that Citi wired to Revlon’s creditors was owed, down to the penny. The loans were simply paid off early.
Citibank struggles to get mistakenly wired money back
But New York law has exceptions to this rule, known as the “discharge-for-value-defense.”
If the beneficiary is entitled to the money and did not know it was accidentally wired, they can keep it. Revlon lenders said they believed Citibank was wiring prepayments for a loan. After all, the money accidentally wired was the exact amount “to the penny” Citibank owed them, although the loan wasn’t set to mature for quite some time.
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Which is exactly what UK bank Santander did on December 25th
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The wrinkle is that it will cost Santander a least a bit just to cover the admin of taking people to court. Plus, much of the money went into people’s accounts at other banks, who probably don’t want to be in the position of taking their own customers to court for another bank’s fuckup.
I wouldn’t be surprised if at least a few people get to keep the extra money.
Also, how shitty would it be to apparently get paid twice at Christmas, only to have the money taken away again?
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Exactly like 2021.
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