There was a story on Reddit where someone was overpaid in their account on a Friday by $180,000. They were supposed to get 20k and got 200k. They had the idea that they can gamble the overpayment over the weekend, win and pay back the overpayment but keep the winnings.
In the story the person lost $60,000 and is obviously completely screwed but let’s say they won. They take the $180,000, gamble and make $500,000. On Monday the mistake is noted and the original payer takes back their $180,000 over payment with no issue. The person keeps the rest of their winnings. In this hypothetical example did this person commit a crime?
Maybe it depends on the jurisdiction. AIUI (and IANAL), here in England and Wales, “theft” has to include the intention “permanently to deprive” the owner of the possession in question. But I suppose it could be covered as “obtaining money by false pretences”, i e, pretending the money for the bet was yours to gamble with in the the first place. Come to that, it would be “permanently” depriving the owner of the winnings they might have won, had they had the opportunity to make the same bet.
But the company doesn’t own the bank account. They’ve already given the money to the employee. In error, yes, but it’s not theft if someone puts money into your mail slot.
I’m not sure why this is in IMHO instead of FQ but I don’t see how this is a criminal matter. Seems entirely civil.
Receiving money by accident is not a crime. Refusing to return it when asked can be a crime, depending on the circumstances.
If the Redditor had returned a sum of money equal to what they received when asked, then I don’t see how anything that took place between receiving and returning the money is anyone’s business but theirs.
Let’s put this another way: in the actual case, does the original payer have any grounds to demand compensation from the casino?
Depending on the jurisdiction, the withdrawing and making use of funds that are not yours, even if you then return the principal in a timely manner, could be an offense. Probably relatively minor if there is no loss, vs just leaving town with the 200K, but you are expected to know “that’s not yours, don’t take it”.
Of course the subject here does incur in what we’d call Felony Stupid for his chosen strategy to turn a profit on the float.
I think there was a case two years ago in the US where a bank accidentally deposited their own funds in the holders’ accounts. The holders were withdrawing the balances and the bank was asking for the funds back. I can’t remember the details but the bank spokesperson said the same would apply if people were grabbing cash that flew from a truck on a freeway.
So are you asking about the morality or ethicality of what they did?
Using the word “crime” tends to imply you’re asking about a legal matter. Which will of course depend on the details of lots of regulations and which jurisdiction we’re talking about and …
I’ll suggest that morally it’s not too different from asking to borrow your neighbor’s car, then taking it to the racetrack for an afternoon of amateur racing, then crashing it. The crash wasn’t intentional, but was a plausible foreseeable outcome with a decent probability of happening. And the neighbor sure didn’t expect you to take their car out racing. Asking to take the car, knowing you’d be racing it, is where you jumped the rails of the straight and narrow.
And in the OP’s example, the decision to withdraw the money is where the person jumped the rails of the straight and narrow.
Let’s turn it around, the two times my employer did NOT pay people on time, did they violate the law on slavery even though the funds were put in the next day? Or is it not a crime as soon as we employees were made whole?
As for the OP specifically, stealing (IANAL so my layman understanding) would involve the employee deliberately depriving the employer of their property. The employee did not do that, the payroll department did. If the employer then asked for the money back or did a reversal and the funds were not there, then it would be stealing.
Would there be a difference if I transferred the money to my saving account or pulled it out in cash for the sole purpose of making sure it didn’t get accidentally spent knowing I would have to return it? I’m thinking a means rea element to the crime.
This may be a highjack but I think it is a similar question. Remember the Chase Bank “hack” which amounted to writing a bad check to yourself then depositing it and pulling out “free money”? If a person were to do that and then Chase says, “Give me the $40,000 to cover your bad check.” and you hand them the cash, it that a crime? I mean, you did write a check without funds at the time.
I’d put the money in a saving account, and just sit on it for a while. I have no idea who deposited all that money in my checking account. I figured I had a secret admirer. I’ll have to look into it.
The difference is that cars aren’t fungible, while money is. The payer doesn’t need to be repaid the exact money they accidentally gave - any money will do, from any source. All that matters is that the columns balance out at the end.
This is an example of a bank accidentally depositing too much money in an account (approximately $1,200,000 too much), and the account owner getting charged with a crime when they spent the money and refused to return it. However it’s not clear to me exactly when the crime occurred: when they withdrew the money from the account, when they spent it, or when they refused to return it.
In that case, it looks like technically it was when she transferred it out of the account ( so they couldn’t reverse the transaction.) Of course, it happened in February and she wasn’t arrested till April, so chances are there wouldn’t have been any charges if she had just returned it rather than avoiding the bank’s phone calls, emails and texts. Avoiding contact sure makes it appear you had no internt to return it.
If money is fungible, then doesn’t this depend on the gambler’s wealth?
Let’s say they were a billionaire to begin with, and a $200k deposit was a rounding error to them. Maybe they never even noticed the error, went to Vegas for the weekend and lost $60k to the slots. They spent another $100k on hookers and blow. All in all, it was a relatively cheap night out on the town.
Come Monday, the bank notices the error and asks for the $200k back. His assistant’s assistant deals with it and he never notices it going back.
Did he commit the same crime? Is the poorer person only committing a crime because their starting bank balance was too low? If they had $300k in the bank and only lost $60k and was still able to pay back the $200k, are they then innocent…?
And of course this never works the other way around. If you accidentally deposited $1000 instead of $100 and withdrew it back when you noticed it a few days later… the bank still earned interest on the $900 difference, and you don’t get any of it.
I don’t think withdrawing the money is a crime, as long as there is not intent to deprive the owner of it, and could be seen as safeguarding it as the account owner can not know the legitimacy of the claim. That’s why a good lawyer is needed. But using it would seem to cross the line, your use of it is depriving the owners use of it. And for that moment you converted their funds to only a chance of winning, and if you win they only get their original amount back.
I’d wondered something similar, I recall reading about someone who got something absurd, like a $12 billion mistake in their bank account. I always wondered if I were allowed to let it sit in my 3-4% savings HYSA for a month, whether I’d be allowed to keep the interest - I guess not.