In 2016, Fife was said to be the happiest place to live in Scotland, at least according to the Bank of Scotland Happiness Index. But it may not be quite so happy for a man who was recently overpaid nearly £300,000 by Fife Council and now has to pay it back (that’s Fife House, North Street, Glenrothes, Fife, Scotland, the seat of Fife Council, in the picture). According to Irish Legal News yesterday (also here and here):

Fife Council, in Scotland, was supposed to pay the man £59.95 a week, but accidentally paid £59,395 per week instead – and didn’t notice until around £297,000 was paid out. … Most of the cash has been recovered and a repayment plan has been put in place to recover the remaining sum, around £12,000.

It was a monumental banking blunder from an administrative worker at the council who made a “keying error“. This resulted in five massive weekly overpayments during July and August, before council officials discovered the error. This is a spectacular example of a butterfly-effect typo; and Irish Legal News has another example today: a judge calculating a half-billion dollar damages award typed $107 million rather than $107 thousand into his calculator.…

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Last month, English golfer Tommy Fleetwood came twelfth in The Open golf championship. Earlier this month, Thomas Fleetwood had the St£120,000 (US$154,480, €133,000) winnings deposited in his bank account. There doesn’t seem anything exceptional in that story, so let’s try again. Last month, British golfer Tommy Fleetwood came twelfth in The Open golf championship. Earlier this month, Florida golfer Thomas Fleetwood had the St£120,000 winnings deposited in his bank account. That’s right – golf’s authorities lodged the winnings to the bank account of the wrong golfer. One of Thomas’s golf friends posted a picture of the lodgement record on twitter. And Thomas duly repaid the wayward deposit. But he would not have been able to keep it anyway, had he been minded to. As I have said before on this site, you can’t keep the proceeds of a bank error in your favour; and, if you do, you probably won’t be able to get out of jail free (see also here, here, here, here, and here). So, Thomas would have had to give back the winnings to golf’s authorities; and they in turn will no doubt pay them on to Tommy, if they have not already done so.…

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In the board-game Monopoly, one of the cards that you can get by landing on ‘Chance’ is ‘Get out of jail free‘. If you are sent to jail during the game, you can use the card to ‘escape’ immediately, without having to cool your heels for the three turns otherwise mandated by the rules. It is as about a useful guide for life as the its fellow Monopoly ‘Community Chest’ card, which tells you that you can keep the proceeds of a bank error in your favour. Unfortunately, you can’t; and spending it is straightforward theft, as is well illustrated by a story in today’s Irish Independent:

Jail for ‘flabbergasted’ teen who succumbed to temptation after €20k was mistakenly lodged in his account

Karl Smith was due €200

A teenager who had “an incredible temptation presented to him” two days after his 19th birthday when his former employer mistakenly lodged almost €20,000 into account has been jailed for theft. …

Judge Melanie Greally sentenced Smith to four years in prison with the final two years suspended.

There is more on this case here, here, here and here. This is not the only time this kind of thing has happened, though it certainly seems to be the most unlucky defendant.…

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In June 2012, a massive IT failure affected all of Ulster Bank’s ATMs, and many customers sought to take advantage by making multiple withdrawals of cash which they did not have in their accounts. As I have commented many times on this blog, in the case of overactive ATMs, overpayments, and theft, a bank error in your favour is not a gift from God; an overactive ATM is not santa, and the scrooge bank will have to be repaid; bank errors are not a licence to gamble; and keeping the proceeds of a bank error in your favour can amount to theft.

However, in a recent prosecution of a man who managed to withdraw €13,600 from Ulster Bank ATMs during the IT failure, the judge dismissed the case as the prosecution failed to prove Ulster Bank did not consent to the withdrawals, and the State had failed to prove the bank existed. The defendant was charged with 23 counts of stealing cash, the property of “Ulster Bank Ireland Ltd”, and whilst there was evidence of various entities associated with Ulster Bank, the judge held that there was no documentary proof of a properly incorporated legal entity called “Ulster Bank Ireland Ltd” put before the jury, and he therefore directed the jury to acquit the defendant.…

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In the case of overpayments by an ATM, erroneous overpayments can be recovered by the bank (whether on foot of the bank’s terms and conditions, or pursuant to a restitution claim to recover a mistaken payment), and so must be repaid by the customer. Worse, seeking and retaining the overpayments can amount to theft. As I have said on this site, a bank error in your favour is not a gift from God; an overactive atm is not santa, and the scrooge bank will have to be repaid; bank errors are not a licence to gamble; and keeping the proceeds of a bank error in your favour can amount to theft.

All of this is brought to mind by a story in this morning’s Irish Independent (also Sunday World and 98fm):

Man who withdrew thousands of euro from ATMs during Ulster Bank computer failure avoids jail

… Babatunde Fagbule (46) visited several ATMs around Dublin and Meath on June 22, 2012 and made thousands of euro in withdrawals. By the end of the day the account, which belonged to his wife, was overdrawn by €8,315. … The court heard Fagbule had no right to withdraw more money than was in the account as it did not have an overdraft facility.

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In a famous “community chest” card in the Monopoly board game, if there is a bank error in your favour, then you can collect $£€200. On the card, the lucky customer is pictured almost fainting in astonishment, as a teller presents a wad of notes. Sadly, as with the history of Monopoly, as told by Mary Pilon in her fascinating book The Monopolists: Obsession, Fury, and the Scandal Behind the World’s Favorite Board Game (2015) (Bloomsbury | Amazon), the reality is far more complicated. As I have said on this site, a bank error in your favour is not a gift from God; an overactive atm is not santa, and the scrooge bank will have to be repaid; and bank errors are not a licence to gamble.

That last warning was in the context of “some technical issues” being experienced by Ulster Bank in June 2012, by which some “account balances … [were] not up to date” at ATMs. I specifically commented that any excess withdrawals in such circumstances would have to be repaid. And I warned that such withdrawals often amount to theft. It is not a surprise, then, to read today’s stories of a woman who stole more than €57,000 from various ATMs across Dublin on 22 June 2012 and today pleaded guilty pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to ten counts of theft from Ulster Bank.…

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The following story caught my eye in the news today:

Cashier asleep with finger on keyboard launched a €222,222,222 transaction

… a German bank employee … had intended to transfer €62.40 from a retired employee’s account but “momentarily fell asleep” and ended up transferring €222,222,222.22 … which was only spotted and rectified by bank staff hours later.

Sadly for the recipients, the bank was perfectly entitled to rectify the error: as I have said on previous occasions on this blog, the recipients of the €222m would have had to pay the money back. See A bank error in your favour is not a gift from God; Santa, Scrooge, and overactive ATMs; Bank errors are not a licence to gamble.

The terms and conditions of the contracts between banks customers usually allow banks to reverse such erroneous transfers. Even if the contract doesn’t apply, or if the transfer cannot be electronically reversed, there are likely to be non-contractual claims to restitution on the grounds that the customers were unjustly enriched by the mistaken payments. Worse, if the recipients decide that the money would be much better off resting in their other accounts, this would constitute theft. There is no electronic philosopher’s stone that can transmute €62.40…

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