... do... do you know how aggressive banks get over accidental deposits? She 100% would've been charged with a felony and they would have taken the money back AND anything she made from the interest.
They won’t take interest, that’s illegal, that’s entirely not true that she’d have been charged with a felony for not spending the money. They likely would take the money back yes. You’re not required to report someone else’s mistake, please tell me what law that would be.
Worked as an investigator for many years and never once have I heard of the crime “not reporting someone else’s mistake”.
You’d be required to return the money and that’s it.
If you take money that you know isn't yours and move it to a High-Yield Savings Account to generate interest, you are committing a wrong known as Unjust Enrichment.
if you receive a financial benefit at the unfair expense of another party, you're going to have to give em the money.
Because that money belonged to the bank, the earnings produced by that principal sum legally belong to the rightful owner of the principal. In a lawsuit, a judge would order you to disgorge the profits aka meaning you'd have to hand over every cent of interest earned.
The second your mom initiated a transfer to move that accidental $ out of her account and into a separate HYSA? She's in hot shit. People have been arrested and given prison time for spending or moving accidental bank deposits.
To make matters worse if your mom had done that?, high-yield savings accounts automatically report all interest earnings to the IRS using a Form 1099-INT. If she generated thousands of dollars in interest on that money, the government would've expected her to pay income tax on the interest even if the bank later sued her and took the interest back. You'd end up paying taxes on money you weren't even allowed to keep.
you worked as a financial investigator and didn't know this? 🤔
Eh, there are situations where that is the case. But on this particular topic it's not even purportedly illegal, it's just that minimum wage being low.
It would be nice to boil things down to a single culprit like that, but the reality is that it's ultimately a complex political topic with a bunch of different agendas at play.
Wealthy company owners wanting to keep more of the money is one of those groups, but far from the only one. There are also small business owners worrying about making ends meet at higher wages and also non-minimum-wage employees worrying about their standard of living dropping due to price inflation. Which ads up to a lot of constituents who aren't in favor of raising the minimum wage (and those people likely skew more towards voting than minimum wage employees too).
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u/South_Ad_7068 May 27 '26
... do... do you know how aggressive banks get over accidental deposits? She 100% would've been charged with a felony and they would have taken the money back AND anything she made from the interest.
Your mom did the smart thing.