5 ms·

Alas a lot of people are going to discover that Monopoly's "bank error in your favor" card doesn't work in the real world :D

by olliej 5y ago

buu700 5y ago
I wonder if someone could get legally get away with finagling this into a large bank loan, particularly from a bank with a partially or fully automated application process. "Oh sure, here's my 2021 year-end statement (no additional comment)." (Let's just assume for the sake of argument that the money was left in the account long enough to be reflected in a statement.)
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- duxup 5y ago
  Ages ago when I had to put actual paper statements together for a loan they wanted several statements. I assume because someone could just get friends to loan them money, show one statement, and pay their buddies back. The statements didn’t even seem that important to the bank anyway.
- cmeacham98 5y ago
  I'd be pretty surprised if the bank didn't have some generic term in loan contract along the lines of "the information/papers I gave $bank for this loan is accurate to the best of my knowledge", in which case you'd be explicitly defrauding them.
  - adrr 5y ago
    Lying on a loan application is bank fraud.
- refurb 5y ago
  Mortgage company wanted 3 months of statements to show the money wasn’t recently deposited.
- PragmaticPulp 5y ago
  Look up “seasoned funds”. Banks learned long ago that they need to trace the source of funds and confirm they’ve been in possession of the person for a long time before assuming it’s actually theirs. Otherwise people would get ultra-short loans from friends and family or even other moms and pretend it was their own.
  - wumpus 5y ago
    The one time I got a mortgage, I was saving an unusually high % of my salary. After the mortgage company got a look at my bank account, they were nervous that I was possibly getting extra money from somewhere, and demanded a larger downpayment. Fortunately, I was able to hit that number by continuing to save at the same rate. As they say: don't be unusual.
- jdavis703 5y ago
  The banks are going to require you provide an explanation and documentation for where all funds came from for the past several months. Besides they’re going to be looking at your annual income anyways — one time cash drops are only useful for making a larger deposit. But they’re not dumb enough to use a one-time infusion to calculate your debt to income ratio.
- errcorrectcode 5y ago
  Only banks and corporations are allowed to monetize float. Better off to start a bank.
kapilvt 5y ago
Sort of depends… on if its a person or business on the other end ;-) https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/02/citibank-just-got-a-500-million-lesson-in-the-importance-of-ui-design/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/02/citibank-just-go...
- jonas21 5y ago
  Well... in that case, the sender actually owed the recipient the money. It just wasn't due at the moment. From the article: > Citibank sued, arguing that it was entitled to get the money back since the cash was sent out by mistake. Ordinarily, the law would be on Citibank's side here. Under New York law, someone who sends out an erroneous wire transfer—for example, sending a payment to the wrong account—is entitled to get the money back. > But the law makes an exception when a debtor accidentally wires money to a creditor. In that case, if the creditor doesn't have prior knowledge the payment was a mistake, it's free to treat it as a repayment of the loan. Judge Furman ruled that that principle applies here, even though Citibank notified its creditors of the mistake the very next day. The defendants noted that the amounts they received matched the amounts Revlon owed down to the penny, making it reasonable for them to assume it was an early repayment of the loan.
ummonk 5y ago
Unless it's an error that is plausibly paying down a loan, in which case the error might actually work in your favor, depending on how Citigroup's appeal against the hedge funds goes.
dustintrex 5y ago
Back in the 1990s, I was living in another country and noticed that sometimes, when I used my home credit card, the purchases would simply never appear on my bill. The "free" purchases were always small (no free airline tickets or cameras) and the only pattern I could figure out was that a bookshop I frequented was always free. But I felt bad about (potentially) stiffing them, so I started buying my books with cash instead.
- shitloadofbooks 5y ago
  The bookshop probably had their payment gateway set to their merchant's card test gateway.
  - dustintrex 5y ago
    It wasn't the only place where this happened though, just the only one where it clearly happened every time. This was in the days of printed statements, so there was often a lag of several months until I would find out what was and was not actually charged.

Alas a lot of people are going to discover that Monopoly's "bank error in your favor" card doesn't work in the real world :D

by olliej 5y ago

Alas a lot of people are going to discover that Monopoly's "bank error in your favor" card doesn't work in the real world :D

buu700 5y ago

I wonder if someone could get legally get away with finagling this into a large bank loan, particularly from a bank with a partially or fully automated application process. "Oh sure, here's my 2021 year-end statement (no additional comment)." (Let's just assume for the sake of argument that the money was left in the account long enough to be reflected in a statement.)

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
duxup 5y ago
Ages ago when I had to put actual paper statements together for a loan they wanted several statements. I assume because someone could just get friends to loan them money, show one statement, and pay their buddies back. The statements didn’t even seem that important to the bank anyway.
cmeacham98 5y ago
I'd be pretty surprised if the bank didn't have some generic term in loan contract along the lines of "the information/papers I gave $bank for this loan is accurate to the best of my knowledge", in which case you'd be explicitly defrauding them.
- adrr 5y ago
  Lying on a loan application is bank fraud.
refurb 5y ago
Mortgage company wanted 3 months of statements to show the money wasn’t recently deposited.
PragmaticPulp 5y ago
Look up “seasoned funds”. Banks learned long ago that they need to trace the source of funds and confirm they’ve been in possession of the person for a long time before assuming it’s actually theirs. Otherwise people would get ultra-short loans from friends and family or even other moms and pretend it was their own.
- wumpus 5y ago
  The one time I got a mortgage, I was saving an unusually high % of my salary. After the mortgage company got a look at my bank account, they were nervous that I was possibly getting extra money from somewhere, and demanded a larger downpayment. Fortunately, I was able to hit that number by continuing to save at the same rate. As they say: don't be unusual.
jdavis703 5y ago
The banks are going to require you provide an explanation and documentation for where all funds came from for the past several months. Besides they’re going to be looking at your annual income anyways — one time cash drops are only useful for making a larger deposit. But they’re not dumb enough to use a one-time infusion to calculate your debt to income ratio.
errcorrectcode 5y ago
Only banks and corporations are allowed to monetize float. Better off to start a bank.

kapilvt 5y ago

Sort of depends… on if its a person or business on the other end ;-) https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/02/citibank-just-got-a-500-million-lesson-in-the-importance-of-ui-design/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/02/citibank-just-go...

jonas21 5y ago
Well... in that case, the sender actually owed the recipient the money. It just wasn't due at the moment. From the article: > Citibank sued, arguing that it was entitled to get the money back since the cash was sent out by mistake. Ordinarily, the law would be on Citibank's side here. Under New York law, someone who sends out an erroneous wire transfer—for example, sending a payment to the wrong account—is entitled to get the money back. > But the law makes an exception when a debtor accidentally wires money to a creditor. In that case, if the creditor doesn't have prior knowledge the payment was a mistake, it's free to treat it as a repayment of the loan. Judge Furman ruled that that principle applies here, even though Citibank notified its creditors of the mistake the very next day. The defendants noted that the amounts they received matched the amounts Revlon owed down to the penny, making it reasonable for them to assume it was an early repayment of the loan.

ummonk 5y ago

Unless it's an error that is plausibly paying down a loan, in which case the error might actually work in your favor, depending on how Citigroup's appeal against the hedge funds goes.

dustintrex 5y ago

Back in the 1990s, I was living in another country and noticed that sometimes, when I used my home credit card, the purchases would simply never appear on my bill. The "free" purchases were always small (no free airline tickets or cameras) and the only pattern I could figure out was that a bookshop I frequented was always free. But I felt bad about (potentially) stiffing them, so I started buying my books with cash instead.

shitloadofbooks 5y ago
The bookshop probably had their payment gateway set to their merchant's card test gateway.
- dustintrex 5y ago
  It wasn't the only place where this happened though, just the only one where it clearly happened every time. This was in the days of printed statements, so there was often a lag of several months until I would find out what was and was not actually charged.