You wake up and there's £1904 in your PayPal account. What do you do?

FoxEye · 23 Mar 2018 at 22:48

sigma said:
Buy 5 penny sweets.

Is it March 29th 2019 already?

Deleted member 77746 · 28 Mar 2018 at 20:52

Maybe you should have sent that to someone else, they then should have sent it to someone else.... do this as many times as you can splitting the payments into smaller chunks. That would have been fun for PayPal to sort out lol.

Nasher · 28 Mar 2018 at 21:01

FoxEye said:
I think you did the sensible thing.

I know a guy who had thousands land (unexpectedly) in his bank account. He immediately spent it.

The bank then told him it was a mistake and demanded he repay the money. Which he was forced to do (in instalments).

PayPal could probably demand the money back as well if it was a mistake.

Yea legally they can take it back. Just because it was accidentally sent to your account doesn't mean you own it. You'll just end up owing the bank

Caracus2k · 28 Mar 2018 at 21:04

Worth bearing in mind if this ever happens to you....

Dishonestly retaining a wrongful credit.
(1)A person is guilty of an offence if—

(a)a wrongful credit has been made to an account kept by him or in respect of which he has any right or interest;

(b)he knows or believes that the credit is wrongful; and

(c)he dishonestly fails to take such steps as are reasonable in the circumstances to secure that the credit is cancelled

Contacting the relevant company (PayPal) and holding the money for a month or two would likely be enough to ensure that a person could show 'reasonable' steps had been taken to ensure the credit was cancelled...

Here's an example in practice ...

The case of Michaela Hutchings, who discovered she had mistakenly received £52,000 in her bank account and then went on a spending spree, has received much media attention, but perhaps of more interest is the public reaction to the incident, which suggests there is a lack of awareness on the law that exists to deal with such circumstances.

Lichfield District Council accidentally transferred £52,000 into Ms Hutchings account, which she noticed when she went to make a cash withdrawal. She managed to spend £9,000 within 2 days, gave her mother £1,000 and put the rest into a savings account. She was caught by police shortly after and has signed release forms so that the money can be transferred out of her savings account. She claims she thought the money was an inheritance. She could have faced up to 10 years in prison but was spared a jail sentence after submitting a guilty plea. She was given a 12-month community order and told to perform 150 hours of unpaid work.

Diagro · 29 Mar 2018 at 00:13

Yea, but PayPal isn't a bank. The laws don't directly translate to its use

Caracus2k · 29 Mar 2018 at 07:26

Diagro said:
Yea, but PayPal isn't a bank. The laws don't directly translate to its use

I would not be so sure about that paypal has an EU banking licence and offers lending facilities/credit (via a third party) so it might require a stated case to offer some guidance... The 1968 theft act obviously could not envision services like PayPal.

When I transfer money to another party I can use PayPal as a means to send money from my high street bank account to a third party as well as transfer money from PayPal to my bank so it may come down to what the source of the money was and where it was placed afterwards.

Quinnaay · 29 Mar 2018 at 07:45

Phone them asking where your money is, like others said not even joking. Chances are you'll get an explanation and maybe some form or compensation.

ubersonic · 29 Mar 2018 at 10:16

Feek said:
This morning when I opened the app, the additional £1904 has gone.

Should have spent/withdrawn it while you had the chance, you basically threw away a free £1904 lol.

danlightbulb · 29 Mar 2018 at 10:53

Silly silly silly. At least take the money out and keep it, then the transaction couldnt vanish like it did. You could have paid it back immediately if there was an issue. You didnt even give yourself a chance.

bobbyspangles · 29 Mar 2018 at 11:04

And that folks is why you don't accept PPG over Gumtree.

Blackjack Davy · 29 Mar 2018 at 13:09

Feek said:
You wake up and there's an email from PayPal saying you've received a gift from an email address you don't recognise that's made up of random numbers and letters.

Rather than follow any links, you log into your PayPal account via the app and find this.

What would you do?

/edit - Update here.

I'd do nothing and wait for the money to disappear again because its obviously an error. Spending it or withdrawing it would be stealing as it wasn't yours to start with (and it will be traced).This happens for regular banks from time to time as well and its amazing the amount of people that assume they can just spend it and get away with it (you won't and you will have to repay every last penny).

Foghorn Leghorn · 29 Mar 2018 at 15:32

Quinnaay said:
Phone them asking where your money is, like others said not even joking. Chances are you'll get an explanation and maybe some form or compensation.

Compensation for what?
Not being financially inconvenienced in any shape or form? Mental anguish for not having your money removed from your account?

Quinnaay · 29 Mar 2018 at 16:24

Foghorn Leghorn said:
Compensation for what?
Not being financially inconvenienced in any shape or form? Mental anguish for not having your money removed from your account?

PayPal took money that isn't there's from his account. Whats to say the money he received wasn't a mistake

Foghorn Leghorn · 29 Mar 2018 at 16:39

It's unlikely PayPal have taken the money for their own nefarious activities, more likely the original sender had put in the recipients details incorrectly, reported it, PayPal check it out and then correct the mistake.

It was a mistake, op said as much.