This weeks OFF TOPIC thread

[SuperSparks]

Yes, terrific story. It's a shame that the junk mailer didn't have enough money to cover the cheque, because then there would be no moral dilemma as far as I'm concerned. After all the cheque was sent entirely unsolicited, and if it's close enough to the real thing to be actually used then the junk mailers deserved all they got.

Not that I have any sympathy for banks, you understand, they're all greedy bloodsuckers the world over, but they were an innocent 3rd party to a certain extent.It does leave me wondering, though, what would have happened if the bank hadn't been taken over - I would have thought that the bad publicity would have ended up costing far more than $95,000. I know I wouldn't do business with a bank that was not only pretty incompetent but treated their customer in such a shabby fashion.

[OilPatch197]

That's why I bank at a LOCAL bank, not owned by BIG corprates in New York!

[ecrosson]

This actually happened to me, and I got a large amount of money put into my account by mistake. I went crazy, and spent as much of it as I could before the bank caught the error. It was fun for a minute, being well off, but guess what, they made me pay it back, and I did not have the money to give back to them. It ended up with me being sent to collections, and messing up my credit for almost ten years later. This was back in the early 80's and I have since become much more wise, and learned a valuable lesson too. "Don't take the money and run" They will find some way to get you for it eventually. It took them almost a year, and it took me almost ten to get back to normal again.
I for one, would not try to keep it a secret, or try to keep the money either. It just is not worth it in the long run.

That is my take on the Off Topic for tonight...

[Nix]

Well about a month ago, I deposited a cheque for 100english pounds in my australian account and three weeks later the bank rang mm back to say they wanted me to sign a letter saying they were going to withdraw the proceeds as the cheque was stale it was dated 09.09.02

The bank in england wouldn't honour it as it was more than 6 months old.

Argued with the bank manager here in Australia to no avail.

I have to send the cheque back to the bank in England and get a new one written.

A lot of unwanted grief for 100pounds left to me by Grandmother who passed away just over a year ago.

[TJolly]

Originally posted by Ridgerunr
How about 'lost and found cash'? We have a thing here in the States(at least in Oregon) where if the owner can't be found,the cash along with the owners name is turned over to a bureau called 'Division of State Lands'.

Hi Ridge

In the uk if you find something the law says that you must take reasonable steps to find the owner so for e.g. if you found a £20 note on the pavement, looked around to see if anyone was looking for something but everyone was just passing bye then that would be a reasonable step to find the owner. But, if you found a large amount of cash in a suitcase then reasonable steps would be to take it to a Police Station and hand it over.

If it wasn't claimed over a period of time or the owner wasn't traced then the cash would become yours to keep.

Hope you get more than $50.01

[BIG JOHN]

Thanks Kazz, that was a great read. See y'all next week. BJ