Reply #98: Not sure about FedEx, but if USPS does the TV is mine [View All]

[localroger]

USPS actually used to run ads to let people know about this years ago; I remember one featuring a numberof actors unpacking oddly mismatched products, like an Eskimo pulling a reciprocating fan out of the box, and then smiling because they knew the windfall was theirs. The idea is that you shouldn't face a sanction of having to find the real owner and return something that lands in your lap at random by mistake, and that the sender and shipper (and, in the case of something really expensive, presumably the insurance company) will take up the slack and all will have incentive to keep such mistakes from happening in the first place.

The banking industry of course operates by different principles but we once had a similar mistake in our favor when a check for $4,000 was recorded as $40,000, and in researching it we found that if the money stayed in our account for a certain period of time, it would indeed become ours. We reported the error though because we were worried about checks written against the $4,000 not being covered if the error was discovered and not corrected correctly, losing the funds entirely.

This situation is almost inhumanly cruel, expecting someone who is facing so much loss to simply swallow hard and ignore the solution to all of his problems when it lands in his account as if by magic is completely unrealistic. He should be prosecuted, yes, because it is against the law and people should know that, but the jury should also refuse to convict him because they are human.