Being overpaid

[groupro]

Hi there,

I recently received a payment to my bank from a company for an invoice. However, the company made a mistake and put more than the invoice amount into my account. Do I have a legal responsibility to flag this up?

Additionally, ethics aside, would I be legally entitled to keep this money if not now, after a set amount of time of them not realising they paid too much?

Many thanks,
David Wilson

[Chutzpah]

My understanding of the laws surrounding this are such:

You have no "right" to the money, but then again are not obliged to report the error to them. To not give it back would be theft, because you have a reasonable assumption to realise that the money isn't yours. I think they have six years to ask for it back.

Best advice is to put it somewhere where you can easily call on it if they realise their error. For me it would depend on the company (whether I like them) and whether I felt anyone would get in trouble if the error was noticed and was unrectified.

As always, I am not a lawyer, so tread carefully with anything I say.

[Rachelle]

Lucky you but I'd be careful. This happened to a friend of mine and she did have to give the money back and had a terrible time because she had spent it on lovely things!

[Georginazn]

I don't think it's lucky, and I do think you should refund the money without even being asked. It is stealing. Imagine if it happened to you. How would you feel? We cannot get completely aerated about MPs working 'within the rules', but being morally blind, and then live like that ourselves. Sorry if I sound like a Headmistress, but I think we would all benefit from a bit of principle and kindness in all walks of life, with businesses contributing to national morality, not just working on the 'what you can get away with' way of being. This does not qualify, as you should feel obliged to repay – but you could do worse than do random acts of kindness, guided by Acts of Kindness

[Chutzpah]

If we want to touch on morals and semantics then I have to be picky and say, no, it's not "stealing" Georginazn.

[Rachelle]

I was being pretty flippant in my first post. Yes, of course we should all be kind and good to one another etc and I hope most of the time I am. I do think to call it stealing is a little bit harsh - I view stealing as setting out to deliberately take something from somebody. I know Chutzpah has told us that the law views it as theft but to quote: The law is an ***. By the way, does anybody know who said that, I can't remember!

[Georginazn]

I think I got a bit hot under the collar, but I do still think it's better for everyone, body and soul to fess up.
It was Mr Bumble, the Beadle in Oliver Twist who said If the law supposes that,[]the law is an ass, a idiot., so I suppose Dickens coined the phrase.
Plato said Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws.

[Chutzpah]

Maybe I'm just a bad person then...

I knew a chap who did claims investigations for a car insurer. Really high up guy, really intelligent. He confided to me once that basically most insurance companies are absolutely woeful with their internal controls, and he knows that lots of people are paid out twice for the same claim. But their own procedures makes it difficult to track, so they don't really bother.

Now, if I had had a shocking time sorting out my claim as you hear really often happens, spent a lot of blood sweat and tears sorting it out (when it was there job) after many years of loyalty to them and I got two cheques would I cash both and put one in an ISA?

I have to admit, probably.

Now, on numerous occasions I have been given too much change in a shop. And every time I give it back. I've found wallets and handed them straight in without hesitation.

But for some reason I view the first scenario differently... not sure why. Probably because it's the sort of organisation who would quite happy **** on you from a great height at the first opportunity? I don't know.

[Georginazn]

I can thoroughly understand the temptation to screw the insurance companies, but it is still the ordinary folk who pay in the end, as our premiums go up and up and up. I am really sounding like the Mary Poppins of this thread, but I so believe in do as you would be done by, and that what goes around comes around!

[Chutzpah]

I would hazard a guess that uninsured drivers cost us all a lot more than this.