Commercial Bank of Ethiopia Names and Shames Customers Over Bank Glitch Money (bbc.com) 26
An Ethiopian bank has put up posters shaming customers it says have not returned money they gained during a technical glitch. From a report: Notices bearing their names and photos could be seen outside branches of the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE) on Friday. The bank says it has recovered almost three-quarters of the $14m it lost, its head said last week. He warned that those keeping money that is not theirs will be prosecuted. Last month, an hours-long glitch allowed customers at the CBE, Ethiopia's largest commercial bank, to withdraw or transfer more than they had in their accounts.
Re:You gave it to me (Score:4, Informative)
I don't think the recipients could legally get away with this anywhere.
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the only record the banks have of it is from a glitched out computer system that clearly didn't know how much money any given account really had
I mean your right but still
Fail 101 (Score:1)
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Unless the bank manages to screw up twice, and wrecks someone else's reputation over their own incompetence.
Functional countries have legal systems because sometimes you do need an unbiased third party to clean up after the grifters and the idiots.
Re:You gave it to me (Score:5, Funny)
False. I had a bank error in my favor and got $200. I was able to purchase a house on Boardwalk with it.
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Why do you think this? This has never been the case anywhere, or with other industries. "Finder's Keepers" is a kindergarten playground rule only, it's not law. If a bag of money falls out the back of an armored truck after an accident, it is not free for the taking. If you pretend to be someone else and take their money, technically you could say it was the bank's mistake by not checking the ID more closely...
Now flip your statement around. What if you screw up with your bank, does the bank get to kee
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While some commenters assert they'll fight all the way citing the ancient precedent of Finder's Keepers, I think they'll find the law is a little more prosaic => unjust enrichment [wikipedia.org].
Go ahead and follows that link ... the second paragraph even quotes Latin !
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With apologies for the Gollum wordsy.
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Who cares? Fuck the banks. Their glitch, their problem. No one hacked it maliciously. They shouldn't get anything back.
"Oh, but the bank would collapse and it's other customers will suffer."
Good. The bank deserves to collapse.
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I believe the Bank of America had an ATM that was filled incorrectly and people were getting a bit more money than they expected.
I think they ran the numbers and figured the average gain for the customers was around $200 or so, and that pursuing them wasn't worth the costs of the courts and attorneys and effort to recoup that money. So in the end it literally was a "bank error in your favor".
Sure, it might have been a high number in raw
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Google "Entreicherung", German law.
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I thought you were against wealth redistribution?
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So many questions (Score:3)
I wonder how many people who exploited this glitch spent that money already? Will they end up in Ethopian prison? Doesn't the bank have insurance to cover these kinds of screwups anyways?
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I wonder how many people who exploited this glitch spent that money already? Will they end up in Ethopian prison? Doesn't the bank have insurance to cover these kinds of screwups anyways?
Quite possibly, depends on what the punishment is for financial fraud. But it sounds like you're taking the side of the people who purposefully took what isn't theirs. There no such thing as a free lunch. A bank that has a run on it results in a bank that may shut down screwing the general public who used the bank. A bank that covers losses via insurance results in insurance premiums going up (insurance companies aren't charities) screwing the general public. A bank that is backed by government protections
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Ok thanks for the moral lesson, Socrates.
try in the same bank doing wire to wrong account (Score:3)
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I bet you will get reply "Sorry, but we can't fix it, good luck".
Was it the bank's mistake? It's theirs to fix. Was it your mistake? It's yours to fix. Just like the bank needs to follow a legal process to recover customer's money that isn't returned voluntarily, so do you.
Don't pretend this is some weird one sided unfair system.
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By far not exclusive to Ethiopia. Banks give zero fucks about their customers and their finances until it messes with their own money.
Like a broken jewelry case (Score:2)
If a jewelry case in a store broke open, shoppers could easily just reach in and grab whatever they wanted. Would they have the right to keep it? No, not at all. That would be theft.
The bank's software was broken. Users of the ATMs could easily just grab whatever money they wanted. It's no more right for them to keep it, than the jewelry from the broken jewelry store display.
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I plead the Chewbacca defense.
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There's always a bigger fish.