200k Euro in my bank, oh wait.

[Deleted]

can i hug you one day?

[skylla05]

Is it a criminal offense to spend money you were credited erroneously?

It's not a criminal offense to physically spend it (that's more of a morality thing)... but the banks will collect every bit you spent once the error is discovered. If you cannot repay the money, they will definitely take legal action in order to get it. It's kind of silly, but error or not the money is not yours.

[mercutiouk]

There was actually a case a year or so ago where an Australian couple had something like 10,000,000 USD wired to their account. They did a full account transfer to some anonymous Caribbean bank, did a full withdrawal from there, and the last anyone has found of them was that they bought two plane tickets to China. Never found.

This is how i'd roll. You just go live somewhere that doesn't have extradition agreements with your home country. So long as you're happy with never being able to return "home" and your relatives getting a little hassle there's little that can be done to touch you.
Personally - i'd disappear to one of the many Greek Islands, buy a yatch, a helicopter and live out the rest of my days in relative peace and good community

[Twinkeltoe]

I would have waited 1-2 weeks before mentioning it to the bank.
I wouldn't spend it though.

I'd know the money wasn't mine and I'd lose it eventually but if it would leave after I reported it, I'd at least get 2 weeks of interest of 200k
Let's say the interest is 2% that would mean 4000 euro a year.
4000 : 52 = 76,92 euro per week it's on my account.

It's no 200K but a nice bonus none the less

[Goldpaw]

Why didn't you rush to bank, raise few mils and brb bahama.

I'm beginning to feel like Scrooge here, crushing dreams by screaming "HUMBUG!", but anyway;

1.5 million in our Norwegian currency isn't much in Norway. Because everything is so damn expensive here. You can't buy a house for it. You can't buy a car for it. You can probably buy a rather crappy apartment for it. Either way, the money will be gone in 3-4 years at most, and only if you're a really economical person. Running off with 1.5 mill NOK (Norwegian Kroner), is like becoming a serial killer for a donut, pretty much. The profit doesn't justify the crime.

Now, if it was let's say a 100 million in our currency... then I'd take the money myself, and disappear! Spend my days on some southern caribbean island. As long as it sells beer, has chili, and good Internet, any island will do!

EDIT:
I'm pretty skinny, so even those cannibal islands will do! Because nobody in their right mind would have me for dinner! ^^

[Deleted]

http://articles.nydailynews.com/2010...-commerce-bank ^ $5 million randomly showed up in this guys bank account one day. He went down to ask the bank where it came from/surely there was some mistake... and they assured him it was his money. He goes on a spending spree, and it emerges shortly after that belonged to someone else of the same name. Despite him even going down and talking to the bank, he was facing a 25 year jail term once the bank realized their error for grand larceny. Got off with probation, though.

Just read through the article and found something quite distubing. The guy claims that he went and tired to return the money 4 times and met the bank manager 10 times before starting to spend the money. Then when the guy told in court that he had tried to return the money,the prosecutor said he didn't try hard enough...

[Deleted]

I would pretty much do the same as OP for that kind of money, not yet worth ruining your next few years. For like few millions? would have rushed to bank instantly and drained the account. After that... RUN FOREST RUN

[gobtol]

Not sure why everyone is saying "go to the ATM and withdraw as much as you can." Most adults keep far more in their bank account than they can withdraw from an ATM, they do have a limit on them. Removing that amount of money wouldn't help, since once they discovered the error they're going to take it out of his account anyway. He would have to either get it as cash or wire it to another account that that bank didn't have any real control over. Either way, it sounds like the OP didn't really have enough time to do any of this.

[Dedmytas]

LOL OP, sounds like you got trolled hard.

[Afrospinach]

And btw... ur an idiot.. shouldve went to the bank quick and take an obscene amount. But that would just be me.

Completely illegal to do this, you would just end up paying it back or worse.

[Alta87]

If you had acctually used it, they would not be able to force you to give it back. Norwegian Laws O,ô

[Bruxby]

another reason why the bank sortov owns your account and it is not necessarily your money

[TarzoEzio]

The bank porbaly saw the money..and they took it...nya i'm kidding but what if they did

[Callace]

Your best bet would have been to withdraw the entire amount immediately and flee the country.

The banking industry owns us. Whenever people spend at the expense of their errors, it usually ends up with a prison sentence.

[Diontje]

There was actually a case a year or so ago where an Australian couple had something like 10,000,000 USD wired to their account. They did a full account transfer to some anonymous Caribbean bank, did a full withdrawal from there, and the last anyone has found of them was that they bought two plane tickets to China. Never found.

It was an Australian owned bank (Westpac), but it happened in Rotorua, New Zealand. The couple applied for a smaller 10,000 loan and ended up with 10,000,000 instead. They only managed to take about 6,000,000 of it before flying off to Hong Kong.

[Sterilize]

There was actually a case a year or so ago where an Australian couple had something like 10,000,000 USD wired to their account. They did a full account transfer to some anonymous Caribbean bank, did a full withdrawal from there, and the last anyone has found of them was that they bought two plane tickets to China. Never found.

The woman was found and arrested - her ex-partner hasn't been found along with I believe 6 million of the cash, no.

[haxs101]

http://articles.nydailynews.com/2010-01-26/news/17944279_1_brooklyn-man-probation-commerce-bank
^ $5 million randomly showed up in this guys bank account one day. He went down to ask the bank where it came from/surely there was some mistake... and they assured him it was his money.

He goes on a spending spree, and it emerges shortly after that the cash belonged to someone else of the same name. Despite him even going down and talking to the bank, he was facing a 25 year jail term once the bank realized their error - charged with grand larceny.
Got off with probation, though.

Did he get to keep all the stuff he bought..? lol

[apepi]

I would so put all the money in another bank and pay the original bank interest.

[Paoa]

You shuda bought a bazilion wow accounts

[xile]

It's not a criminal offense to physically spend it (that's more of a morality thing)... but the banks will collect every bit you spent once the error is discovered. If you cannot repay the money, they will definitely take legal action in order to get it. It's kind of silly, but error or not the money is not yours.

I feel that if the bank goes out of their way to say that the money is actually the persons who is holding the bank account the person should no longer be held accountable. If the bank messes up, they should be the one taking the biggest hits.