$2,666,594.03 severance?
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When HR Makes a $2,666,594.03 Mistake
When you ask an employee to sign a legal document, better have it checked by a lawyer first.
However, the HR Director made a mistake. Mistakes happen, and we understand that. But, this was a big mistake--she wrote he should receive $80,805.97 per week [for 34 weeks worth of severance pay - @PJH] instead of in total.
Spoilers
The court sided with the company and declared it a mistake.
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How much of that two million did she spend before being told she had to pay it back?
(It’s a common occurrence with money accidentally put into the wrong bank account by government organisations: the recipient thinks, “Spend it before they can get it back” and is dumb enough to not realise that it will be claimed back.)
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@gurth The employee never got the money, because the company paid what they thought they promised, not what they actually did. Hence the employee suing to get the money the company had offered and reneged on.
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@gurth said in $2,666,594.03 severance?:
How much of that two million did she spend before being told she had to pay it back?
(It’s a common occurrence with money accidentally put into the wrong bank account by government organisations: the recipient thinks, “Spend it before they can get it back” and is dumb enough to not realise that it will be claimed back.)
The thing to do in this case is to put cash like that in a short term CD (3 month CD seems best here) so you can make some money off the interest, then when the order to reclaim it comes in, you cash in the CD at the next cycle and hand it back, pocketing the interest. On the surface this seems ok as you aren't actually spending the money, you are using at the time since it was given, and you can return it with notice once a reclamation order is sent. And if you are smart you do it without them needing a court decision to do so. No idea about the real legality of this since of course IANAL.
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@unperverted-vixen said in $2,666,594.03 severance?:
@gurth The employee never got the money, because the company paid what they thought they promised, not what they actually did. Hence the employee suing to get the money the company had offered and reneged on.
A $2.6M severance package sounds perfectly equitable to me.
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Your spoiler isn't much of a spoiler. The court system isn't a robot; in cases where it's obvious something wasn't intended, they aren't going to reward.
Or put in another way, no matter how many Pepsi caps you collect, they're not going to give you a Harrier jet.
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@blakeyrat said in $2,666,594.03 severance?:
Your spoiler isn't much of a spoiler. The court system isn't a robot; in cases where it's obvious something wasn't intended, they aren't going to reward.
It's hard to tell the difference between that & the court system automatically siding with the corporation over the individual.
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@unperverted-vixen said in $2,666,594.03 severance?:
It's hard to tell the difference between that & the court system automatically siding with the corporation over the individual.
The rule is more like "they side with whoever has their shit together" and corporations (especially large ones) frequently have their shit together.
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@gurth said in $2,666,594.03 severance?:
How much of that two million did she spend before being told she had to pay it back?
(It’s a common occurrence with money accidentally put into the wrong bank account by government organisations: the recipient thinks, “Spend it before they can get it back” and is dumb enough to not realise that it will be claimed back.)
I had a bank error that gave me an extra $20K once. I was nice to see. Couple days later back to normal.
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@blakeyrat said in $2,666,594.03 severance?:
Your spoiler isn't much of a spoiler. The court system isn't a robot; in cases where it's obvious something wasn't intended, they aren't going to reward.
There are plenty of cases in which it's gone the other way, though. Seems like the guy had a decent chance and he took it, and his coin came up tails rather than heads.
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@masonwheeler I don't fault him for trying. Just saying his odds of winning were real low.
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@kattman said in $2,666,594.03 severance?:
The thing to do in this case is to put cash like that in a short term CD (3 month CD seems best here) so you can make some money off the interest, then when the order to reclaim it comes in, you cash in the CD at the next cycle and hand it back, pocketing the interest. On the surface this seems ok as you aren't actually spending the money, you are using at the time since it was given, and you can return it with notice once a reclamation order is sent. And if you are smart you do it without them needing a court decision to do so. No idea about the real legality of this since of course IANAL.
I'm nooottt surrre you can do that as you're investing principal that isn't yours. It probably wouldn't catch up with you (as long as you didn't initiate a lawsuit and get a lot of attention), but it also could probably be considered fraud. Whether it could be classified as such retroactively, I don't know. IANAL either, obviously.
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@heterodox said in $2,666,594.03 severance?:
@kattman said in $2,666,594.03 severance?:
The thing to do in this case is to put cash like that in a short term CD (3 month CD seems best here) so you can make some money off the interest, then when the order to reclaim it comes in, you cash in the CD at the next cycle and hand it back, pocketing the interest. On the surface this seems ok as you aren't actually spending the money, you are using at the time since it was given, and you can return it with notice once a reclamation order is sent. And if you are smart you do it without them needing a court decision to do so. No idea about the real legality of this since of course IANAL.
I'm nooottt surrre you can do that as you're investing principal that isn't yours. It probably wouldn't catch up with you (as long as you didn't initiate a lawsuit and get a lot of attention), but it also could probably be considered fraud. Whether it could be classified as such retroactively, I don't know. IANAL either, obviously.
It's certainly not a new issue, not even one dependent on computerized banking, as this Harvard Law Review article from 1887 shows.
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@dreikin
Hm, we've had calculators for a while now..
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@karla said in $2,666,594.03 severance?:
I had a bank error that gave me an extra $20K once. I was nice to see. Couple days later back to normal.
Exactly. Getting your money back if you, as an individual, transfer it to the wrong bank account can be difficult (I’m not speaking from experience, though), but if a big company or government agency does it, it’ll soon be back where it belongs.
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I was reminded of this guy:
http://www.nytimes.com/1995/08/20/us/bank-credits-95093-junk-mail-check-to-customer-s-account.html
tldr; Guy cashes junk mail cheque, bank credits him $95k, bank realises they dun goofed, bank demands money back, guy makes them ask nicely, guy returns money, guy makes career out of one man show telling his story.
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@boner Reminded me of this one
Man who created own credit card sues bank for not sticking to terms
When Dmitry Argarkov was sent a letter offering him a credit card, he found the rates not to his liking.
Man edits contract on a credit card agreement to say 0% interest, unlimited credit and the issuer owes him £60k every time they break the new rules.
In this case the court ruled partially in his favour since they signed the contract, but he's suing for the severance deal he put in there
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@jaloopa said in $2,666,594.03 severance?:
but he's suing for the severance deal he put in there
The dispute between Agarkov and Tinkoff Credit Systems escalated when the bank's chairman, Oleg Tinkov, took to Twitter to respond to media interest in the case.
Then, on August 14 [2014 - @PJH], both sides announced a settlement on undisclosed terms.
"The conflict is counterproductive, so we agreed to settle it by withdrawing our mutual complaints," said Oliver Hughes, president of Tinkoff Credit Systems.
"This started as a joke in 2008... but the joke has gone too far," said Agarkov.
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@kattman said in $2,666,594.03 severance?:
@gurth said in $2,666,594.03 severance?:
How much of that two million did she spend before being told she had to pay it back?
(It’s a common occurrence with money accidentally put into the wrong bank account by government organisations: the recipient thinks, “Spend it before they can get it back” and is dumb enough to not realise that it will be claimed back.)
The thing to do in this case is to put cash like that in a short term CD (3 month CD seems best here) so you can make some money off the interest, then when the order to reclaim it comes in, you cash in the CD at the next cycle and hand it back, pocketing the interest. On the surface this seems ok as you aren't actually spending the money, you are using at the time since it was given, and you can return it with notice once a reclamation order is sent. And if you are smart you do it without them needing a court decision to do so. No idea about the real legality of this since of course IANAL.
You're going to make absolutely fuck-all.
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@blakeyrat said in $2,666,594.03 severance?:
@unperverted-vixen said in $2,666,594.03 severance?:
It's hard to tell the difference between that & the court system automatically siding with the corporation over the individual.
The rule is more like "they side with whoever has their shit together" and corporations (especially large ones) frequently have their shit together.
If corporations have their shit together, they don't make incredibly shitty mistakes like signing a legal contract, that they wrote, which says they'll pay you $80k per week in 34 weekly payments instead of saying that they'll pay you $80k total in 34 weekly payments.
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@swayde said in $2,666,594.03 severance?:
@dreikin
Hm, we've had calculators for a while now..
Sure, but calculator-aided ≠ computerized :p
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@polygeekery said in $2,666,594.03 severance?:
@kattman said in $2,666,594.03 severance?:
@gurth said in $2,666,594.03 severance?:
How much of that two million did she spend before being told she had to pay it back?
(It’s a common occurrence with money accidentally put into the wrong bank account by government organisations: the recipient thinks, “Spend it before they can get it back” and is dumb enough to not realise that it will be claimed back.)
The thing to do in this case is to put cash like that in a short term CD (3 month CD seems best here) so you can make some money off the interest, then when the order to reclaim it comes in, you cash in the CD at the next cycle and hand it back, pocketing the interest. On the surface this seems ok as you aren't actually spending the money, you are using at the time since it was given, and you can return it with notice once a reclamation order is sent. And if you are smart you do it without them needing a court decision to do so. No idea about the real legality of this since of course IANAL.
You're going to make absolutely fuck-all.
Relatively? Yes. Absolutely? That'd buy you a very nice computer.
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@dreikin relative to a million bucks, it's nothing, sure. But relative to what was in your bank account before the mistake, it might be a pretty darn considerable sum...
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A colleague of mine told me a story of when some clerk in one of their customer's accounts payable department confused their small software company with a similarly named company with a much larger invoice. So they immediately deposited the check in an interest-bearing account, wrote a letter, and waited.
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@greybeard said in $2,666,594.03 severance?:
A colleague of mine told me a story of when some clerk in one of their customer's accounts payable department confused their small software company with a similarly named company with a much larger invoice. So they immediately deposited the check in an interest-bearing account, wrote a letter, and waited.
A client of ours was entering EFT transactions and forgot the decimal point on a ~$3,000 transaction, making it in to a ~$300,000 transaction. I never did find out for sure how that shook out, but I assume they got their money back because they are still in business and no one was fired.
I was there the day they figured out what happened. There was a lot of yelling and I snuck out a side door.
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@dreikin You compounded annually....
why? Granted, it's only $20 or so, but that's an extra $20 or so.because they market the APY, not the APR, duhEDIT: Also, Ally's no-penalty CD rate is 1.5% APY
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@dreikin said in $2,666,594.03 severance?:
@polygeekery said in $2,666,594.03 severance?:
@kattman said in $2,666,594.03 severance?:
@gurth said in $2,666,594.03 severance?:
How much of that two million did she spend before being told she had to pay it back?
(It’s a common occurrence with money accidentally put into the wrong bank account by government organisations: the recipient thinks, “Spend it before they can get it back” and is dumb enough to not realise that it will be claimed back.)
The thing to do in this case is to put cash like that in a short term CD (3 month CD seems best here) so you can make some money off the interest, then when the order to reclaim it comes in, you cash in the CD at the next cycle and hand it back, pocketing the interest. On the surface this seems ok as you aren't actually spending the money, you are using at the time since it was given, and you can return it with notice once a reclamation order is sent. And if you are smart you do it without them needing a court decision to do so. No idea about the real legality of this since of course IANAL.
You're going to make absolutely fuck-all.
Relatively? Yes. Absolutely? That'd buy you a very nice computer.
I was going to say, I wouldn't say no to an extra couple of thousand for doing very little. Hell, I'd get an extra hundred just for being a shit investor and letting it sit in my current account. I don't see how they'd claim that interest after they made that mistake though. I'd expect to be paid an investor's salary for my efforts if they wanted the interest back.
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@shoreline
I'm not entirely sure, but I suspect that actually using the money that doesn't legally belong to you and keeping the interest might be fraud.
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@asdf said in $2,666,594.03 severance?:
@shoreline
I'm not entirely sure, but I suspect that actually using the money that doesn't legally belong to you and keeping the interest might be fraud.my understanding of the law is, yes, yes it is.
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@asdf said in $2,666,594.03 severance?:
@shoreline
I'm not entirely sure, but I suspect that actually using the money that doesn't legally belong to you and keeping the interest might be fraud.Is that statement really correct?
In some trade that involve a lawyer, the A side will deposit money to the lawyer and the lawyer will pay to B side when B side completed what is written on contract. In Hong Kong, the lawyer can keep the interest generated as long as the amount is less than HKD500
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@cheong Here that's called an escrow account and they're usually obligated to give you the interest (calculated at some fixed percentage). Real estate transactions use them extensively.
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@cheong said in $2,666,594.03 severance?:
In some trade that involve a lawyer, the A side will deposit money to the lawyer and the lawyer will pay to B side when B side completed what is written on contract. In Hong Kong, the lawyer can keep the interest generated as long as the amount is less than HKD500
The way it works in my jurisdiction is that the lawyer either needs to have the interest be part of the funds being held, or the interest goes to a Interest on Lawyer Trust Accounts which help pay for legal aid for those who otherwise couldn't afford it.
As with anything relating to law, though, the law works differently in different places. Even when you expect things can be different, it can still surprise you how different places can be.
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@pcooper said in $2,666,594.03 severance?:
@cheong said in $2,666,594.03 severance?:
In some trade that involve a lawyer, the A side will deposit money to the lawyer and the lawyer will pay to B side when B side completed what is written on contract. In Hong Kong, the lawyer can keep the interest generated as long as the amount is less than HKD500
The way it works in my jurisdiction is that the lawyer either needs to have the interest be part of the funds being held, or the interest goes to a Interest on Lawyer Trust Accounts which help pay for legal aid for those who otherwise couldn't afford it.
As with anything relating to law, though, the law works differently in different places. Even when you expect things can be different, it can still surprise you how different places can be.
This seems to indicate that it may be allowable to earn and keep interest on it, at least on the US, as long as you're still prompt about informing them off the error.
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@coderpatsy said in $2,666,594.03 severance?:
@dreikin said in $2,666,594.03 severance?:
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@dreikin said in $2,666,594.03 severance?:
@pcooper said in $2,666,594.03 severance?:
@cheong said in $2,666,594.03 severance?:
In some trade that involve a lawyer, the A side will deposit money to the lawyer and the lawyer will pay to B side when B side completed what is written on contract. In Hong Kong, the lawyer can keep the interest generated as long as the amount is less than HKD500
The way it works in my jurisdiction is that the lawyer either needs to have the interest be part of the funds being held, or the interest goes to a Interest on Lawyer Trust Accounts which help pay for legal aid for those who otherwise couldn't afford it.
As with anything relating to law, though, the law works differently in different places. Even when you expect things can be different, it can still surprise you how different places can be.
This seems to indicate that it may be allowable to earn and keep interest on it, at least on the US, as long as you're still prompt about informing them off the error.
And here's one that suggests it may be legal in Germany, but not the UK.
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@jazzyjosh said in $2,666,594.03 severance?:
@dreikin You compounded annually....
why? Granted, it's only $20 or so, but that's an extra $20 or so.because they market the APY, not the APR, duhEDIT: Also, Ally's no-penalty CD rate is 1.5% APY
Some of Ally's CD rates are hilarious and inexplicably lower than a plain liquid savings account.
Basically, anything under a year, you lose money.
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@weng Is this the part where I start talking about High Yield Checking Accounts?
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@jazzyjosh Does such a thing actually exist these days?
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@weng depends whether by "high yield" you mean higher than 0.15%.
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@anotherusername I mean, 0.15% IS 1400% more than a standard checking account...
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@izzion said in $2,666,594.03 severance?:
@anotherusername I mean, 0.15% IS 1400% more than a standard checking account...
I went to a local bank a few months ago and asked what their CD rates were and they printed out a sheet of paper with
0.01%on it in every single field.
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@ben_lubar It pains me that I'm putting my money in an account with basically 0 interest for three months, but that $500 in bonuses is worth it.
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