Comments by "SmallSpoonBrigade" (@SmallSpoonBrigade) on "Stranger Won't Return $71K Accidentally Put in His Account" video.

Several years ago, my broker had a bug that made it appear as if I had billions of dollars in my account. Obvioiusly, that was a programming bug, but I know that people tried to make use of the money before it was taken back. I didn't make any trades or interact with the money at all because I knew there'd be some repercussions if I accidentally spent money that wasn't mine, or possibly even in the account. I think the total money that people had listed in their accounts in total across the firm was probably more money than existed in the entire world. But, I kept a screenshot, because I'm never going to have an account where I'm a billionaire, so I figured I might as well keep the memory of a funny goof up.
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Yes, but if the money isn't in the account, they can't claw it back. Really, what this says is that there should be more feedback given to people that are sending money. It's kind of ridiculous that you can just send money to a bank account, probably just based on the bank number and account number, without any verification that it's going to somebody who at least has the same name as the intended recipient. That would be the same level of protection that a check would get you. I do think that there should be verification from the sender if the name isn't a sufficient match to the intended recipient.
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@michaeldelyjah5696 Yes, and that's usually the problem with banks. I remember a while back when one of the big banks sent money to pay off the wrong debts and had to just eat the lost interest. Since the money was expected by the recipient and was for something they were owed, just later on, they got to keep it. Which seems reasonable, it was money that they had loaned and the terms allowed for the money to be paid off early. As such, they weren't under any legal obligation to give it back as it was legally their money.
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We used to have that, checks involved a name, a signature, an account number and routing number in the US. I'd assume that anywhere that has checks had something similar. Simply requiring a name that could be matched along with the numbers would likely have prevented this from happening. That's how checks were, even if you sent the check to the wrong place, they wouldn't be allowed to cash it as they weren't listed on the check. The thing is, that's not even that hard to do as they already have to have that information in order to comply with money laundering regulations. Just kicking it back to the sender if they don't match without showing the name of the account holder would be sufficient in most cases.
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I think that's the case in most places where banks exist. The main reason being that mistakes do happen and no country is going to make the banks accountable for the mistakes they make. Extending it to errors by users is just something that makes it look less self-serving and easier to prosecute.
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Ultimately, it is the bank's fault for not having a process that would catch that. It doesn't take much effort to verify the recipient against the name of the business that was the intended recipient. That would be a similar level of verification to what you'd get with a check. In order to send money, especially that amount, there are anti-money laundering regulations that require that the banks know whom the parties involved are. So, it's not like they don't know who's sending and receiving the money, they just didn't have adequate ways of verifying that the information was correct. And yes, triple checking is nice, but some of us have learning disorders that make that tough and there's typically a lot of numbers involved, if any of them aren't correct or you've misread the original account number, it can be very hard to find the mistake. Whereas having to get the account and bank numbers correct on top of the name of the intended recipient right would have prevented this from happening. I work at a store that handles Western Union, and I've been there when customers were having issues because the middle name of the recipient was incorrect and the money couldn't be received. (Such mistakes can only be handled by Western Union, not the 3rd party retail store that has the machine)
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@GARDENER42 Except that it's mostly conservative voters that get caught doing it and states that vote by mail don't see an up tick in fraud.
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Sort of. In this case, yes, but not always. If somebody sends you something unsolicited, as in with your correct name and address on it, you can generally keep it without repercussions. Sending something to somebody unsolicited implies a transfer of ownership in many cases. It also helps to keep down on fraud being committed by sending things unsolicited and then following up with a bill. But, if it comes to your address with a different name, then you probably won't get to keep it if the owner contacts you to get it back.
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