Windfall of money

innovate

tescobabe69 wrote: »

Open a new current account and leave the money in the old account.
If and when the company ask for the money tell them you are brassic, and youre very sorry but your partner(from whom you are now parted) ran your affairs and the money is spent.
They will counter that the money is legally theirs and must be repaid, you offer to scrape together 10% as that is all you can afford, they consider your offer and after a few weeks they settle for 30% (depends on your bargaining skills), or they never ask for it.
Or be honest and pay it back tomorrow.

I would hope that anyone trying this pack of lies would get caught.

xylophone

Nope. It was 5 months full salary

Then you dishonestly took advantage of what you knew to be a mistake?

BASFORDLAD

xylophone wrote: »

Then you dishonestly took advantage of what you knew to be a mistake?

Not a criminal offence. If they had asked for it back they would have got it back. But this happened about 5 years ago

xylophone

Not a criminal offence

Debatable I'd say - but even if not criminal, still dishonest?

BASFORDLAD

xylophone wrote: »

Debatable I'd say - but even if not criminal, still dishonest?

No dishonest implies criminality. I would say morraly questionabld

xylophone

A mistake led to your being paid money that was not properly due.

In full knowledge of the error, you kept the money.

That's dishonesty in my book but perhaps I'm old fashioned!




That's dishonesty in my book, but perhaps I'm old-fashioned!

AnxiousMum

Just having received the money into the account, is not theft. However, spending it, knowing it is not your own money, is then theft. As long as it is in the account - it is still available to the original owner to reclaim it and have it paid back - therefore, not deprived of it permanently. When it is spent, the owner is then deprived of it, and it becomes theft.

Save the hassle - call the company and let them know they've been paying you incorrectly. You'll probably even feel good within yourself after doing it

Tight_as_a_Drum

The same happened to my girlfriend, the month after she left her job she received her wages as normal. She didn't notice right away and wasn't entirely sure how to go about giving it back.

Before too long the politely worded letter came through requesting the monies be returned... to avoid court action, it was paid back that day.

valk_scot

I would get in touch about it. Who knows, it might by some remote change be money that they were due you and you could enjoy it happily. Even if you did end up returning it you'd have the moral satisfaction of having done the right thing. Is moral satisfaction worth anything? Only you as an individual can answer that one....

Dirk_Gently_2

How is this any different in principle from walking down the street and seeing a bundle of fivers on the ground? You know they're not yours, you know they must belong to someone else and you know there's a mechanism available whereby they can be returned to their rightful owner if he/she can be found.

If you put them in your pocket and spend them that's still theft - only in the case of unexpected money appearing in a bank you're far more likely to get caught since there's a clear audit trail of the money getting to you.