Would you return the money?

[GottaGetDownOnFriday]

Re: this news story about a cleaner who was accidentally refunded £90,000 instead of £9.
metro.co.uk/2020/09/02/cleaner-sent-90000-by-charity-in-error-let-temptation-get-the-better-off-her-13215404/

Would you have returned the money in her position?

YABU - I would have returned the money.

YANBU - I would have kept the money if I could.

I think I would return it, as it was from a charity so I would feel horribly guilty keeping it and I would worry about getting caught anyway, but I'd probably let it sit in my account for a day or two first whilst wrestling with my conscience.

I'm just curious to see what others would do. I have a lot of sympathy for this woman even though she was clearly in the wrong.

@CarlottaValdez

The clincher for me is how quickly she moved large sums out of her account. She absolutely knew it was dodgy and acted quickly to try to make sure she could keep the charity’s money, In a sense she may well have got away with it - there’s 31k that’s still unrecovered. I’m actually amazed she didn’t get a custodial sentence (although I’m glad she didn’t for what it’s worth).

The £31k was sent to Ghana which is why it has not been recovered

Yes that’s right. That’s what I mean by got away with it - she’s successfully passed stolen money to the people she wanted to. It may well be worth the suspended sentence to have managed this.

If 90K suddenly appeared in my bank account, I would spend 10 glorious minutes dreaming about the new kitchen, the exotic holiday with a wardrobe to match, and the swanky new car I'd buy...then I'd phone the bank and tell them.

These days I'm lucky to have 90 pounds in the bank, let alone 90 thousand

That probably makes me a dishonest person though 🤷‍♀️

At least you're being honest about it.

Let's accept humans are inherently dishonest.

I'm just curious to see what others would do. I have a lot of sympathy for this woman even though she was clearly in the wrong.

You have sympathy for a woman whose immediate response to a mistake which is going to massively impact a charity helping vulnerable, disabled people, is to transfer £££ outside of the country??

The charity isn’t going to get the money back and she lied her face off in court.

She should be in fucking JAIL.

I was so mad when I read that story at 11:30 last night, I went straight onto the Mencap site and made a £50 donation. Hope it’s inspired others to do likewise.

Would never even think of keeping it regardless of where the money came from.

I have a lot of sympathy for this woman even though she was clearly in the wrong.

I have no sympathy, she's a thief who stole from a charity. she knew exactly what she was doing. She then said she was expecting a transfer of £12000 but her bank account would have shown exactly where the money would have come from.

Rather a shame that the newspaper reported that the staff involved had been dismissed for what appears to have been a horrible huge error.

From the timeline in that article, it appears the bank contacted the charity. I've worked/volunteered in a couple of different charity shops over the years (although not Mencap) and in every one the till is counted at night and a print off is the from the card machine to compare to the till figures. If that had been done then the error would have been found by the staff the same day and maybe something could have been done earlier.

Always try giving it back. It's not worth the guilty conscience. Around 10 years ago I was playing tennis with my bank over £730. They kept 'refunding' it to my account, I kept ringing & saying its not mine, they'd take it back then refund it to me again. There'd been fraudulent activity on my card but it had already been sorted & this £730 hadn't been part of that. After 6 months of money tennis with them I sent them a letter stating what had been going on then stuck it in a savings account. Not heard a thing from them & it's still there. The thought of it stresses me out. Im not touching it, It's not mine, it can be put behind the bar at my wake when I die.

I feel sorry for the staff members who lost their jobs. It looks like they hadn’t pressed enter after the refund amount was entered so the lady entered her PIN. The newspaper says she was paid something like £90,047.19 which would happen if the £9.00 was keyed it but then not confirmed.
Stealing from a charity is despicable! If money that isn’t your appears in your account, someone is going to notice! I wouldn’t risk time in prison!

Of course I would return it. I read that news story yesterday and it made me cross just thinking about how despicable that woman was. Im glad she's been named and shamed so everyone knows what a horrible person she is. No way did she think that money was intended for her.

Would love to know how it happened - did the cat sit on the 0 key.. I was bemused by this every tiome I heard it asked on the radio! Anyone who has ever worked a till can tell you!

The employee used the 00 button on the till instead of the single 0

900
90000

I would return it. It’s obviously a mistake. I’m also surprised how quickly she transferred large sums of money. Small amounts to pay of a credit card, or a small spending spree wouldn’t be so bad, but £50 thousand!

she's total scum to knowingly keep the money, i hope that the charity can reclaim some of that money back from her, if not now, some time in the future.

@GottaGetDownOnFriday

I'd return it. It doesn't seem like you have a choice, anyway. You're bound to get caught.

Hypothetically, if it was from a big institution (eg a bank) and I knew I would get away with it I think I would keep it. That probably makes me a dishonest person though 🤷‍♀️

The money wouldn't be "from a bank" it would be from a person.

There are some horrendous stories where people have accidentally put their money into someone else's account - maybe by tapping in one wrong number and then found it exceedingly difficult to get the money back. It's much easier if the receiving person gets in touch with the bank and says "there's obviously been a mistake."

I don't feel sorry for her. A ex colleague of mine had an error amount paid into her account (£6000 instead of £600) and a lot of it was eaten by her overdraft. Her bank then cancelled her overdraft and refused to help even when the amount was recalled. She had phone calls from the company almost hourly, ended up with bank charges and it took months to sort out - people like her are where my sympathies would lie. Not someone who deliberately hid money she knew wasn't hers

Of course I would have returned the money. If if was the other around and the money had been taken out of my account in error, I'd expect it back.

I wouldn't have suspended the woman's sentence. I'd have imprisoned her.

I was bemused by this every tiome I heard it asked on the radio! Anyone who has ever worked a till can tell you!

It wasn't exactly £90000 though, it was 90047.19. It looks like it was the 900 and then possibly the supervisor code on the card machine or the customers PIN.

I'd have returned it. The very fact that she distributed among family members so very quickly tells you that she knew fine well that she had been given the wrong amount and wanted to get it spent.

She's stealing from a charity ffs! I didn't read dan to see what her punishment was, but I hope they throw the book at her. That's a dreadful thing to do,.

I d remember a case many years ago where wa woman had had a huge sum of money paid into her bank account which she knew wasn't hers. She got in touch with the bank and told them. The bank insisted that the money was indeed hers. She insisted it wasn't. they insisted it was.

This went on for some weeks (possibly months) with her telling the bank they'd made an error and the bank repeatedly telling her they "didn't make mistakes" and the money was hers.

So she spent it.

Then all of a sudden another customer of the bank with the same name asked why the transfer of £Umpteen- thousand hadn't gone into their account - and the full horror of what they had done dawned upon the the bank. They sued the first woman for the money back. She didn't have it. So they tried to effectively bankrupt her and force the sale of her house etc to repay it. She refused and this was how it ended up in court.

Happily this was in the days of LETTERS to the bank, and she had kept copies of hers, and of course, all of their replies telling her to stop nagging them- if they'd told her once they'd told her a thousand times it was her money, now bugger off! (I'm paraphrasing here )

The judge ruled that she had done everything n her power to return the money to the bank. The bank had chosen not to accept it, and she had every right to spend it. IIRC she didn't even have to pay back the remaining money which was still in her account.

How I have dreamed of this happening to me, but alas, it never has.

Of course, it’s theft otherwise

I would return it, but only because I knew I'd get caught.

It wasn't exactly £90000 though, it was 90047.19. It looks like it was the 900 and then possibly the supervisor code on the card machine or the customers PIN. Ah! I shall revise my mental image of it then! Radio didn't mention that whilst I was listening, just a round figure of 90,000.

I would return it- it was money from a charity.

If money had been put into my account by a bank or a financial institution I would probably wait a while.
I have a current account that pays interest so I probably wouldn't " notice" the error for a while. I wouldn't spend any of it, but wait for them to ask.

It's theft by finding its immoral weather its a bank or a charity she's a thief

*whether

Yes I would. I got a tax rebate of nearly £4,000 last year and I refused to spend a penny until I found out where it came from and if I was supposed to get it

It isn’t worth the hassle of spending it if you end up having to pay it back