Posted on 10/09/2011 5:18:17 PM PDT by Marie
Not a dent.
An excellent lesson shot to hell
This is really just awful advise. Are you speaking as some kind of attorney with experience with such things? Having worked a bank for a very long time, I'd say if she followed your suggestions she'd be asking for big, big trouble.
Moving the money will immediately cast enough suspicion on her to trigger a full blown investigation that would almost certainly involve law enforcement. Your not only suggesting she move the money to an interest bearing account, your are arguing she she take money that isn't really hers from one institution to another. Instead of just a simple account correction, this would open the door to bank security immediately believing she was running some kind of scam.
Yes, if she had records of reporting the error and could produce the money on demand she might escape too much trouble, but why go through all that and risk the bank and FBI assuming the worst and trying to prosecute her for fraud? It's not her money, she has no right to it and it is wrong to keep it in the first place.
wow you found half a dozen legal sites dealing with this person’s exact situaton and you completed your “legal” analysis in about two minutes and apparently without a legal degree you are already an expert on state and federal banking laws and regulations, not to mention all manner of other potential criminal and/or civil liability.
That’s what I should be saying. Legally and morally if they don’t catch it eventually (”eventually” being defined differently in each state) it’s your money. Works the other way around too, if they make a screw up that goes against you you’ve got 60 days or you’re SOL, they get years but eventually they too are SOL. There’s nothing immoral about waiting the proper time period and taking what they law says is yours. And any interest you get is just an inconvenience fee for you making the effort to make sure they would get the money if they figured out their error.
Leave it in the account. Pretend it is not there. Eventually, the bank will figure it out and draw it back out.
Old Chinese sage say: Ignorant you can teach, but only cure for stupid is kill.
That’s the power of the internet, lots of data there for folks who have good search skills. And actually it took about half an hour. Never said I was an expert, but I did find lots of experts that all agree on the basic fact that eventually the money is legally yours. They did mention potential criminal and/or civil problems, but those only arose in the case of the person taking the money and spending it, as long as you can cough it up in total if they ask before deadline day you’ll be fine.
Oh now you’ve added insults to shouting. Cute. Meanwhile out here in reality the money is legally your if you wait long enough. And given how long that it, anybody with that level of patience has morally earned the money.
Regaring my prior post, bank reconciliations are done by a department in the company usually called something like Treasury or Cash Management.
Many companies use a banking feature called positive pay for paper checks; it’s an electronic file of the payments which the bank is supposed to verify when honoring checks they cut. Since it looks like her employer’s bank honored the check, if they use positive pay, the file had that amount in it. Maybe they don’t use postive pay. If the pos pay file was correct and the bank honored the wrong amount, her employer may not be liable for the difference, their bank may have to eat it.
None of you guys have to worry about her trying to keep the money or playing tricks with the money to score a couple of bucks off the interest. She knows that the money isn’t hers and she’s just afraid of getting into trouble. She’s also afraid of her account being messed up and blocking the use of the the money that actually is hers.
Tomorrow I’m having her take out the money that *is* hers to keep it safe in case they freeze her accounts. Tuesday she’ll start nagging the bank and her company to get it fixed. Until it’s sorted, she’ll use cash.
If it’s not fixed within the next two weeks, I’ll have her open another checking acct for personal use until this matter is settled and she can let them figure it out at their leisure.
They always figure it out. I’m well aware.
By talking about it to them multiple times she’s covered in case of an investigation. Actually in many ways she WANTS an investigation, then they’ll find the error, and she can give the money back and the whole incident gets to end. The main reason to move it is to separate it logistically, this is her usage account, she does her normal banking out of there. Leaving the money in there is asking for confusion. And since the law says the bank has years to find their error might as well move it someplace that draws interest, get a little benefit from this massive inconvenience.
Of course, if she does not cooperate in getting the money returned to her employer, in most, if not all States (certainly the 35 or so right-to-work states), she’d probably be fired as soon as the issue turned up in a reconciliation and it was determined that she did not let her employer know that she received the extra money.
The company will receive a reconcililation file, maybe paper probably electronic every month for the payroll account, which will list every check that cleared. It will contain at least a check date and check number and amount, which they can link to her payroll records. That will be all the evidence they need that she received the money.
If they’re on the ball, this will happen by the middle of November.
You ain’t whats wrong with America. I’m proud of you!
If the company is actually out the money they definitely need to be informed. Probably they aren’t. Bank errors usually only go one way, it’s how they’re caught, the Ts get all screwed up.
I have been through this before. Now that the check has been deposited your fastest route to correction is often going to the payroll department / accounting and asking them to withdraw the excess funds.
I don’t forgive your profanity. Forgive me for saying you’re an arrogant piece of crap.
There is what is known as a Ten Day Law in banking. It falls under the UCC Article 4, “Deposits and Collections” and if you were to read such a thing before spouting off your electronic mouth, you would come to understand that there is what is known as a “Midnight Deadline” under which the deposit made to her account carries with it a warrantee of negotiability which the transferor (the payor) cannot disclaim after those ten days toll. Unless one of nine specific aspects of the deposit were faulty (eg; forged signature, incorrect date, several other things) then the transfer cannot be disclaimed.
The salient regulations are laid out in sections 4-201 through 4-209 of the UCC.
Here’s a link to it. Educate yourself.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/ucc/4/article4.htm
I will also refer you to “Brady on Bank Checks” - The Law of Bank Checks, by Henry Bailey and Richard Hagedorn, generally considered to be the defi9nitive textbook as to how the industry operates.
They don’t get that money out of her account in ten working days, it’s hers. They have to sue her in Chancery Court to get the money back, and they may do so, but there is no fraud or aspect of the statute of frauds she violates by simply letting the money sit there.
No she won't. It isn't income to her and it isn't a "gift" to the bank. It's a mistake. No 1099 should be issued, nothing should be out of whack on her W-2, the IRS should never know about it at all.
If, by some fluke, she were to be audited, she would have records that there was $98k deposited and $98k withdrawn. It's a pretty simple and straight forward explanation....plus it has the advantage of being the truth.
I don’t believe that the 10 day law applies here. Because the check was actually written for the correct amount that she was owed, it’s different.
Had the company written the amount wrong and had she cashed it in good faith, you might be right, but they didn’t. It was a machine error at the ATM.
I believe that different rules apply here.
Just because of the nature of the discussion, I did look it up. It’s taken me hours, but I found out that Texas has a 4 year statute of limitations for most money matters.
The only way she would (hypothetically) be able to keep the money is if she made a good faith effort to get it fixed, didn’t touch it and it was still sitting there after four years.
But I can’t see that happening. There are too many checks and balances in the systems. Somebody will catch it and she doesn’t want to deal with any issues when it’s time to give it back.
Thank you!
Ok, just kidding. Just don't spend it and get it squared with the bank. Maybe don't call but go in and find a manager who maybe went to grad school or at least has an above room temp IQ.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.