I Got My Bank Poll - A Minor Ethical Dilemma

does your gf know where the TARP money comes from? if there's ever been a 'fuck you banks' point in human history, it's rightttt now.

I'd sit on the money for a long time regardless, just because there's a decent chance they'll figure out on their own that the numbers didn't add up somewhere.

^^^^

The bank will figure it out.

I voted B. Murphy's Law, if you spend it, you can bet they'll ask for it back the following week.

Ethnically/morally I'd keep it. FU banks. But practically, I would tell the bank and have them correct it ASAP because what they will do is wait until you have less than $500 in your account and THEN pick that moment to recoup it and then charge you an OD fee.

A very very similar situation happened to a good friend of mine in college, except for $1000. He sat on it for a couple weeks to see what, if anything, happened. Oh shit. He found out. Found out when a federal investigator called him to ask questions about "fraud". Long story short, nothing happened. The bank fixed the error, but he did have to sit through an uncomfortable couple of days and phone interviews. Seemed like a very rare case, I'm more likely to think they'll notice their error and fix it without bothering to contact anyone.

It's not going to be free money. They WILL figure it out eventually.

I like how when the bank makes a mistake they accuse YOU of fraud.

I would imagine that if it was a substantial sum then the bank are going to correct the error at some point. If you keep the money you might let yourself in for an awkward situation in the future when they take it back.

I'm not sure that collecting overdraft fees is shady at all, on the basis that banking services are generally offered free of charge and this must involve a lot of admin costs that need to be recouped in some way. The agreement signed when opening the account includes agreeing to pay fees if you go overdrawn without authorisation; to me people complaining if they get charged doesn't seem entirely fair - after all no-one is forcing them to go overdrawn.

xxxxp Rather than being sly and maximising the charges, I'm fairly sure a bank would correct an error as soon as they can because having a misbalance is going to be hassle for the tellers or whoever deals with the ATM machine. Also, it will probably be the employees who correct the error who have no interest in increasing the amount you are charged - they would probably rather you werent charged at all to avoid the difficulties when people go into a branch to complain.

also: this is likely the result of human error somewhere.

right now there's a X% chance that they'll figure it out on their own and that human gets in X amount of trouble. if you go in, there's a 100% chance of that.

the idea that it's from someone else's account seems really unlikely to me, but even if it is, anyone who wouldn't notice that $500 missing from their bank account...well...

justice & ethics & karma aside banks are not really institutions that you want to fuck with, because, you know, they have your money, in a big safe, and they have other peoples money too, and they are more than willing to sue you, using your money, for your money, which--funny thing--they already "have" in at least one sense of the word

Yeah, the whole situation with my friend was ridiculous, but the fed investigating it was pretty understanding and had a "hey, you didn't screw up kid, but I gotta do my job" attitude towards it.

haha okay jon / via / chi might have a more convincing argument than me

I just like the idea of free money, that's all

one can only assume it will be discovered out but there is no reason to actually alert anyone

To answer the question directly, yeah, I'd notify 'em. They're gonna find out sooner or later.

Wait until you get your statement, do not touch money, then tell the bank when you bring in your statement to ask WTF. I'm assuming there was a withdrawal receipt or you signed for it, if not WHOA the teller handed you $500 *unrecorded*.

max otm. They'll figure it out eventually & when they do you might not have a spare $500 in 'oops lol sry' cash set aside.

(That being at best what wld happen, you having to return the amount of 'error in your favor'money you received.)

I'm not sure that collecting overdraft fees is shady at all, on the basis that banking services are generally offered free of charge and this must involve a lot of admin costs that need to be recouped in some way. The agreement signed when opening the account includes agreeing to pay fees if you go overdrawn without authorisation; to me people complaining if they get charged doesn't seem entirely fair - after all no-one is forcing them to go overdrawn.

It's totes within contract & of course the idea of overdraft fees makes sense (checking acct ≠ interest-free line of credit). But $25-45 overdraft fees ($25 on the v low end!) are pretty fucking exorbitant IMO. And the peeps who are most likely to overdraft (aside from I guess people in manic phases) are peeps living month-to-month. Those are also the people who can least afford to lose that chunk of change. (Like if I overdraft – I buy some groceries & forget the cable bill was going to get autopayed that day – lol 5 fucking % of my income goes to fees.)

banking services are free of charge not due to the kindness of bankers - they're free because we're giving them our money so they can go make more money for themselves. the admin costs thing = nonsense, this is an enormous streamlined business. the difference between me having -$10 and $100 in my bank account does not require citibank to do $25-$45 of admin work. as abbott said, people who are likely to overdraft are often disadvantaged, and thus the easiest to group in society for a big business to take advantage of. all that said, I have a citibank account w/ an automatic overdraft line of credit, so I don't have to worry about this anymore. it's nifty and was free.

A!

I highly doubt it came out of anyone else's account, and if it did, the money will def. go back when whoever lost it complains anyway.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Getting investigated by the feds might actually bring a welcome modicum of adventure and intrigue to my life. It'd make for an amusing Facebook status update, at least.

justice & ethics & karma aside banks are not really institutions that you want to fuck with, because, you know, they have your money, in a big safe, and they have other peoples money too, and they are more than willing to sue you, using your money, for your money, which--funny thing--they already "have" in at least one sense of the word

― rip dom passantino 3/5/09 never forget (max), Wednesday, June 10, 2009 5:39 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

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Wait until you get your statement, do not touch money, then tell the bank when you bring in your statement to ask WTF. I'm assuming there was a withdrawal receipt or you signed for it, if not WHOA the teller handed you $500 *unrecorded*.

― 502 Bad Gateway (suzy), Wednesday, June 10, 2009 5:50 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

yeah ^^ I did save the balance sheet (& downloaded a PDF of my account activity). What you describe, Suzy, is what I've been thinking of doing. It would be pretty unrealistic for them to call foul on me for failing to weed out clerical errors in my personal banking when they are, after all, the bank. But, as Max says, they are sort of holding all the cards.

The problem is that, the longer I wait to contact them (i.e. waiting for a statement, etc) the more tempting it will be to keep quiet if no flags are raised along the way, b/c, yeah, in the end:

I just like the idea of free money, that's all

― iatee, Wednesday, June 10, 2009 5:41 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

OTM

it would be awesome if this was like returning a wallet and the bank was like "wow pillbow, what an honest young man! here, have $100"

I'm not sure that collecting overdraft fees is shady at all, on the basis that banking services are generally offered free of charge and this must involve a lot of admin costs that need to be recouped in some way. The agreement signed when opening the account includes agreeing to pay fees if you go overdrawn without authorisation; to me people complaining if they get charged doesn't seem entirely fair - after all no-one is forcing them to go overdrawn.

This is another subject altogether, unfortunately one with which I am more familiar than I'd like to admit. But as a freelancer w/ erratic income, I've made do more than once during lean times by chancing against time w/ credit/debit purchases - rolling the dice & hoping checks clear before transactions from the night before are posted, etc. This is all fair play in the sport of bank sparring, but where I call foul is when they purposefully allow multiple, small credited purchases to linger indefinitely in "pending" status, while immediately rushing through larger transactions, just so that the series of little ones will hit precisely when you've gone into the red &, before you know it $15 worth of snacks & beverages becomes $150 in OD fees. I also take issue with getting charged an "unlicensed ATM" fee w/ an OD fee on top just for checking my balance & discovering I was broke to begin with. Fucking brutal! I've wised up, at least. The incidents described occurred during my "formative years."

My best trick (in the UK) happened whenever I got freelance checks drawn on my same bank: if deposited at the branch where it originated, the funds would be in my account by midnight.

I've been the teller who made the stupid error, caught it, and had to call the sweet old lady and tell her I had to take out the money from her account because I shouldn't have put it there in the first place. Even though it's the bank's fault, if they catch it (and they probably will), they're not going to let you keep the money. Might as well just get it over with and tell them.

My best trick (in the UK) happened whenever I got freelance checks drawn on my same bank: if deposited at the branch where it originated, the funds would be in my account by midnight.

Really? Barclays made me wait a week for a cheque from the same branch to clear recently. After all, while they're telling you that nobody can possibly get at the money because nobody can be sure it exists yet, they're sticking it on the overnight stock exchange and creaming off any profits.

Funny how it takes them a week to decide that a cheque exists, but if you write another cheque which depends on that money, they'll decide right away that it's not cool.

(Not pleased with banks since a rather large cheque bounced for no reason and came back to me with a stamp saying "refer to drawer", which they had not. I was hoping that since they had taken over a week to tell me I couldn't have some money I was relying on to meet a deadline I could talk them into waiving the direct bank transfer fee and get it within 4 days instead of 7 - 4 days and a £30ish fee to electronically transfer money within the same bank! - but of course you can't ever get anything free out of a bank)

Maybe my situation was due to the bank I was at (NatWest). It's actually pretty easy to get banks to rescind a charge in that situation but it's key to begin the negotiations from a POV of 'no way, bank error, total maladministration and if I take any more of my business day to turn you into adults, you're getting invoiced for my time.' That and go straight past the minion who does fobbing off from a script to a manager with 'NO they can't call me back, your lousy accountancy has already wasted THIS much of my time so you will expedite my call NOWISH.' Well, that's the condensed version. Third level of attitude to this is the journo option, only deployed in an emergency: 'Which broadsheet do you think is the most interested in this kind of problem? 'Cos I write for three of them, as my statement should tell you.'

NB I don't deliver these lines as Alexis Carrington or whatever, I'm usually using the 'good doggie' voice and otherwise being exceptionally polite.

wow my bank clear cheques immediately, and don't charge me overdraft fees. i thought that was fairly usual.

I just hate the fact that checks you write are withdrawn immediately, but deposits take 3 days to clear.

Take it, put it in the best savings account you can get. If they ask for it back, you have it and depending on how long they take, you could still end up with a little bit of free money.

Wow, Suzy, you make me glad I bank with a small local credit union...they have pretty much nothing at all to give them an edge over bigger banks apart from customer service (certainly not their interest rates), and there are definitely times when you need to talk to a manager or higher, but they're always very pleasant and accessible about it!

Waiting for checks to clear doesn't usually take longer than a day, if it's a smallish or business check...I try to keep enough of a buffer that I could get by if one were delayed, though, especially because I'm moving and have decided to handle my banking by mail and internet instead of setting up a local account at a new, probably more annoying and less transparent bank.

I'm not sure that collecting overdraft fees is shady at all, on the basis that banking services are generally offered free of charge and this must involve a lot of admin costs that need to be recouped in some way. The agreement signed when opening the account includes agreeing to pay fees if you go overdrawn without authorisation; to me people complaining if they get charged doesn't seem entirely fair - after all no-one is forcing them to go overdrawn.

In general I agree that overdraft fees are just part of the banking process, but I had a MISERABLE bank experience earlier this year where the bank LOST one of my deposits (same weekly paycheck as ever) and waited a MONTH to a) notify me and b) remove the money from my account (not necessarily in that order.) This caused a week or more full of overdraft fees--I had no idea the money was gone from my account until maybe ten days later when I went to deposit another paycheck (generally the only banking I do--once per week deposit paycheck/withdraw what i hope will be enuff cash for the week.)

So, because of things like paying for dinner with a debit card, buying shit with paypal, etc, after ten or so days I ended up "owing" the bank something like $500. So I call them and talk to maybe six people in a two-day span, assuming that if i just get a replacement check (no problem) then they'd be willing to waive the fees incurred--BUT NOT SO. After they refused to give me my goddamn money (remember, they lost the paycheck which caused the account to go into the negative) I switched banks but continued to call and bother their customer service. At this point I think they refunded some of the fees, but handed my negative bank balance over to a collection agency--not fun.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

If you really loved your bank, you would want it to know, wouldn't you? Well, wouldn't you? Or are you the sort of person who just uses banks, as if they had no feelings?

I like my current bank just fine, but what I like best is not having to speak to some kind of scriptbot when I ring up for help. The only aggro I've ever had was over $200 from ATM in the middle of a snowstorm; machine didn't complete the transaction but YOU GUESS CORRECTLY my account debited for this and my home bank couldn't put it right until I got back to London and could sign off on it in person. Said it could take ten days to put right, sorted in TWO once we did the paperwork.

OTOH occasionally I'm paid TWICE by accident (hasn't happened in awhile) and I do not make a song and dance, particularly when I've had to chase six weeks past the normal four to be paid at all so in summation, karmic late fee applies.

And the lurker/scoundrel contingent takes it handily. Five days and counting, btw. Some of you almost had me calling them up to make the reveal, but no.. I'm not quite there yet. Still treading very cautiously, tho.

xp one of my banks - one of America's largest - calculates overdraft fees as such:

They pay the largest amounts first - explaining it to the customer as "you wouldn't want your mortgage check or car payment or rent check to bounce, would you?"
Thus, they are more likely to reap more overdraft fees.

My s.o. had the same thing happen to him with being charged an overdraft fee on checking his balance/list of recent transactions.

is the court case re: UK overdraft fees still rumbling on? Pretty sure the judgement here was that they're illegal and a scam, but the OFT or whoever said they didn't have the resources to help people dispute sums less than £12