My "friend" needs advice, please

tomandkath

Debt free chick - the money is not anyone else's. The building society has made a total pigs ear of closing my mother's various accounts and as a result have sent two cheques in payment of one account.

geosaver

If she kept it, it would be stealing and be no different to helping herself to cash from a shop's till. Just because it might be a big organisation and someone has made a mistake it doesn't dilute the crime.

withnell

It would be classed at theft, and will most certainly be noticed when they balance the books, which i'm sure happens fairly regularly in a financial institutions (considering its once a month or more in most businesses that size) - really not worth it

Ivrytwr3

cash the cheque into a savings account. Keep it there until (if!) they want it back. Hand it back but you keep the interest.

opinions4u

If you misappropriate any of this money, you will almost certainly be prosecuted.

I'd say an 18 month sentence would be a fairly likely outcome.

Happychappy

opinions4u wrote: »

If you misappropriate any of this money, you will almost certainly be prosecuted.

I'd say an 18 month sentence would be a fairly likely outcome.

You are clearly joking !!! This is Englandistan, nobody gets a prison sentance for silly little things like theft of £24k, assaults, stealing cars or burglary, speeding maybe, but not crime, that is so old fashioned thinking.

You would more than likely be sentanced to a cruise round the world and be appointed your own dippy social worker to help you come to terms with your inner self

Cash it in at a We cash cheques rippoff shop and go on holiday, then when you come back there will be a cruise waiting for you....or possibly not.

soulsaver

In 1991 a supplier of a company I worked for owned up to the fact that he'd been sent a £17k payment by transfer in payment for invoices overdue, and a cheque had subsequently arrived for a similar amount. I suggested to him that he accrue this against future invoices falling due, as it would sort itself out in a future reconciliation. But he wanted 'to do the right thing' and immediately returned the cheque. A couple of months later our company went bust; he failed to get paid for nigh on £30k of o/s invoices. Think he wished he'd have banked it?

You never know what's round the corner: I'd deposit it for safe keeping '..until they let you know why it had been paid to you....'
No way illegal.

opinions4u

soulsaver wrote: »

You never know what's round the corner: I'd deposit it for safe keeping '..until they let you know why it had been paid to you....'
No way illegal.

Borderline.

The second you spend any part of it and you're doomed.

greenface

opinions4u wrote: »

Borderline.

The second you spend any part of it and you're doomed.

explain doomed

nilrem_2

geosaver wrote: »

If she kept it, it would be stealing and be no different to helping herself to cash from a shop's till.

Whilst I agree that the cheque should be returned; no question, I really don't think it can be compared to stealing from a shop till, if the OP's 'friend' had gone to the building society and stolen a cheque then that would be similar to stealing from a till.

The cheque must be returned, one would need nerves of steel and no conscience to keep it IMHO!