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What would you do if you had KSh1 million credited into your
bank account erroneously?
Well, most people would just withdraw that money and spend
it!
A woman in the UK recently received an erroneous credit of £90,000 (Ksh13 million) into her
account instead of £9!
What did she do?
She smiled and thanked the heavens for a windfall and then promptly
withdrew £57,722 (Ksh8.3 million) transferring the money to different accounts.
This case is not peculiar to the UK alone.
A Kenyan man was also
recently arraigned in court for spending Ksh800,000 to build a house, money
that had been erroneously credited into his account.
Erroneous credits are quite a common occurrence in the
banking industry all over the world from an operations standpoint!
Most of the time it’s due to the pressure involved in the
back office, payment deadlines, fatigue due to minimal breaks given to staff,
human error, not to mention preferential treatment for priority clients.
But should you spend money that is wrongly credited to your
account?
That can either be a legal or moral question.
From a legal stand point, if you can prove that you were
expecting the money then there’s no problem.
In
Civil Appeal 259 of 2001, one Lazarus Masayi Onjallah
against Kenya Commercial Bank was awarded a sum of Ksh 402,151.85 with interest
after the bank froze his account and refunded the money to the sender Mumias
Outgrowers Co Ltd (Mocco) who claimed the funds were fraudulently sent to the
recipients account.
In
the suit, the bank did not call any witness from Mocco to prove that the money
was fraudulently obtained.
In
addition, the court found that the Bank was in breach of its relationship with
the customer by refunding the money to the sender without any reference to the
account holder.
In
contrast, if we can answer the moral question we would not need to get into a
legal argument about this.
On
an ordinary day, taking what is not yours is known as theft! But what if
somebody else places some cash into your account erroneously? Do you keep quiet
or should you say something?
First
and foremost, the account is the banks for your usage to the extent it is used
according to the terms and conditions of the bank! Using your account to engage
in fraud is not one of those terms.
To
that point if it can be proven that you engage in fraud the bank would have no
choice but to terminate its relationship with you.
A
case in point. You get into a matatu and after a while the conductor comes
around to collect his dues.
The
fare for the day is Ksh50.
The
conductor is exhausted after a long day’s work.
You issue him with a note of Ksh500 and after
his rounds collecting from other passengers, he gives you back Ksh950 instead!
Voila!
You’ve made profit of KSh450. But wait a minute, what product have you sold? Or
what service have you offered?
Money
is a medium of exchange because it stores value. If you have not offered any
service or sold any product in exchange for that value you are simply engaging
in fraud.
Yet
this is how the seed of corruption and theft if planted.
Most
people would be willing to point out the theft by a public officer but would
think nothing of taking back more change from the matatu conductor.
Our
character is mostly formed by the things we do in secrecy in the absence of prying
eyes. Soon what was born and bred in secrecy becomes a leaping giant that comes
out boldly and the true person emerges.
Everyone wants to have some bit
of financial comfort, to be able to afford a good life. However how we go about
it matters.
The UK lady was sentenced to 20
months in prison. She is a mother and a grandmother. Her lawyer argued that she
has lived a simple and quiet life and only found herself on the wrong side of
the law due to temptation.
It only takes one bad decision
to ruin your reputation forever. All of us get tempted.
The conflict between your desires and your needs intersect at the point
of your patience and perseverance.
The uncontrolled urge to have it
now is what causes one to fall. It causes one to disregard moral boundaries of
right and wrong.
We overlook in a split second the most important question, “why
am I doing this?”
“Why” is an emotional question. It
answers to the desires locked up in one’s soul.
The soul is a place of deep
emotion and therefore a source of great conflict. Answering the “why” question when
in the valley of decision would help one to reason differently.
There’s no shortcut to wealth
creation. And whenever you think you have found the quickest way to get rich you
are just about to pay for it with your life.
Money has a logical side to it
that talks about earning, investing, saving, spending and giving. This logical
side of money is hardly ever heeded or emphasized.
But money also speaks to the
emotional side of many people. And that side is hardly ever rational.
That is why people commit
atrocious and heinous crimes for the promise of money. This leaves room for us
to be controlled by money or the giver of that money.
When emotionally overwhelmed by
the desire to have money, one can be vulnerable to making wrong decisions. This
is because emotions are erratic.
So in as much as you have
pressing needs and you think this is a god-send answer to your prayers, you
have no right to use that money.
You’re better off making a
choice to report to your bank than to use that money because the consequences
of the aftermath can become an irreversible roller-coaster!
I rest this one here!
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