Community Feedback on How We Handle Accidental Gifting

[Master Blaster 3T]

With three confirmations including a mobile confirm, this is not an accident, this boils down to sheer incompetence.

There is no bearing to the worthiness of one's trust "the reliability of truth" as they had no agreement in-place prior to the arrangement of an unsolicited offer.

 

Mistakes happen, and we must learn from them, unfortunately in this case it was a HUGE mistake.

 

 

[naknak]

Every kind of scam requires a mistake on the victim's part.  The mistake and taking advantage of it are two separate things.

[Adolf Storms]

1 hour ago, Teeny Tiny Cat said:

One argument that could be made is that we do allow positive trust for returning items sent in error, so the logical inverse would be to allow negative trust for items not returned.

 

Allowing +trust for returns made from honest errors is common. Haven't seen issues with this personally or friends having them removed. I guess there is room for abuse on this if people were leaving false +trusts... but really who even cares about trust ratings on bp unless they are proven/backed with screenshots/histories etc... The person who owns the bp can always report the rating if it's unjust.

 

However, allowing the reverse to be allowed leaves room for plenty of miss-use. For instance someone feels butt-hurt a day after sending a trade to a buy order because they realize they could have sold it for more but didn't sufficiently check all buy orders from various sources and requests a trade-back. Has happened to me a couple times. I refused as my policy is no trade-backs. Once a trade is made it's made. Multiple stage authenticator removes the chance of error so there's no excuse, but people can 'claim' they were 'scammed' (improper use of term but we all have heard it used in error). If you didn't take the time when putting the items into the trade, then clicking confirm trade, then mobile authenticating it, then not taking the time to view your trade offer history before it's accepted... well you had your chances. multiple. It boils down to responsibility. If you aren't responsible enough to ensure you are sending the offer for what you want to trade then it's all on you. BP is not a babysitter or your mommy. Go cry to them. We all make mistakes. Learn from them and move on. Airing your laundry out in public only makes you seem the fool. Trying to intimidate the recipient into trading back or adding refund is no different than bullying. Let it go.

 

[appy]

3 minutes ago, Adolf Storms said:

 

Allowing +trust for returns made from honest errors is common. Haven't seen issues with this personally or friends having them removed. I guess there is room for abuse on this if people were leaving false +trusts... but really who even cares about trust ratings on bp unless they are proven/backed with screenshots/histories etc... The person who owns the bp can always report the rating if it's unjust.

 

However, allowing the reverse to be allowed leaves room for plenty of miss-use. For instance someone feels butt-hurt a day after sending a trade to a buy order because they realize they could have sold it for more but didn't sufficiently check all buy orders from various sources and requests a trade-back. Has happened to me a couple times. I refused as my policy is no trade-backs. Once a trade is made it's made. Multiple stage authenticator removes the chance of error so there's no excuse, but people can 'claim' they were 'scammed' (improper use of term but we all have heard it used in error). If you didn't take the time when putting the items into the trade, then clicking confirm trade, then mobile authenticating it, then not taking the time to view your trade offer history before it's accepted... well you had your chances. multiple. It boils down to responsibility. If you aren't responsible enough to ensure you are sending the offer for what you want to trade then it's all on you. BP is not a babysitter or your mommy. Go cry to them. We all make mistakes. Learn from them and move on. Airing your laundry out in public only makes you seem the fool. Trying to intimidate the recipient into trading back or adding refund is no different than bullying. Let it go.

 

we are ONLY talking about one sided trades here.

[Woifi The Viking]

Reading some of the comments here I wanna just repeat the requirements here to make things more clear.

 

Accidental Gfits only, that means one sided trades with no donation or gift message attached. No general tradebacks or somethings like that.

 

 

I'm fairly certain that those cases are clear cut and don't have innocent victims. No one sends a stranger hundreds of $ for fun. Imo the intent of those offers is fairly clear, the intent is clearly NOT a gift. People who don't return those offers are not good people. Personally I would not trust those people with a risky trade (money for example). When they show greed/no morals in the gifting scenario, the chances are high that those might take "free money" as well when given the chance.

I can see that being reflected in a -trust.

Also returning items should give a +trust I agree.

 

But I can see arguments for the other side as well.

[Fishtail]

It's certainly tough to draw a line at some point. But with one-side trades, like we saw in the last case, there should be some consequences for such actions. To accept such a massive blank offer as a "gift" is preposterous. It's always the user's fault for not thoroughly checking their trade before sending the offer. But let's face it, we're all at that point sometimes. Actions like accepting the offer in the first place, failing to return even a small amount of those items, using the victim's faults in their state of panic to sheild themselves, and taunting the victim hints foul play. Trust ratings are supposed to reflect someone's reliability. And people who do accept that blank offer, knowing fully well it isn't a gift, cross that line. Even though they are trusted with cash trades, since they simply don't wish to get banned, they can always accept these "gifts" without any consequences. I think that's what gives them the idea of accepting the accidental gifts happily, since there are no set consequences for it. Users with "all trades are final" motto use it for when they are trading something away, not for gifts. And I think the community needs to start setting standards and use the same morals that we use in our lives, instead of calling this a virtual world where anything goes. Sure as hell wouldn't be saying to yourself "you deserve it" when you experience a big loss, and not do anything to get it back. So, while banning might be a little harsh, trust ratings should certainly reflect the consequences of their actions. If they return the items, a +trust is well deserved, since they didn't run away with the items - like how it is with cash trades. And vice versa.

[habanero]

Just want to +1 the idea of giving negative trust in the case that an accidental gift is not returned.

 

It speaks poorly of a user's character if they are willing to keep something they realize is not meant for them. 

 

That kind of poor judgment is something I would want to know about before engaging in a trade with that user, even if it is not strictly considered scamming by the system. 

[Adolf Storms]

4 hours ago, appy said:

we are ONLY talking about one sided trades here.

 

oh... well incomplete trade is 1 thing but to completely forget to put in the intended items you want to trade for is just total user error

'gifting' ... i get it. so it was more to do with the recent large item fubar, righto

[polar]

7 hours ago, Teeny Tiny Cat said:

One argument that could be made is that we do allow positive trust for returning items sent in error, so the logical inverse would be to allow negative trust for items not returned.

 

5 hours ago, Woifilicious said:

I'm fairly certain that those cases are clear cut and don't have innocent victims. No one sends a stranger hundreds of $ for fun. Imo the intent of those offers is fairly clear, the intent is clearly NOT a gift. People who don't return those offers are not good people. Personally I would not trust those people with a risky trade (money for example). When they show greed/no morals in the gifting scenario, the chances are high that those might take "free money" as well when given the chance.

I can see that being reflected in a -trust.

Also returning items should give a +trust I agree.

 

But I can see arguments for the other side as well.

 

Maybe set a similar cut-off to the rules for trading with scammers. Trades like this >15 keys in value result in a ban. At that value, there's no doubt of intent on either side. 

 

Trades like this under 15 keys get -trusts? I mean, if someone is an asshole and is willing to be an asshole for a few bucks, I'd want to know if I was dealing with them in a cash transaction. I would certainly try to avoid them.  

 

End of the day, this is a private site and you get to decide who you want in the community. Assholes are not someone anyone wants around here.

[Draco Blaze]

32 minutes ago, polar said:

Maybe set a similar cut-off to the rules for trading with scammers. Trades like this >15 keys in value result in a ban. At that value, there's no doubt of intent on either side. 

 

I'd say Trades >15 keys warrant at least a -trust if not returned. Beyond that I'd prefer a 2-3 mods look into the actual situation and determine if a ban is warranted. Like if the party who mistakenly sent the items goes into an uproar immediately and becomes difficult to deal with leave the -trust, but a ban might be too far. People are less inclined to comply with the initial party if they are just being an asshole about their own mistake.

 

Definitely -trust someone especially if they amount is <15 keys. If the want to cheat someone for a few bucks that will continue into higher trading.

 

I feel like a waiting period is in order before the -trust should be put on. Like 2 days after trying to contact the individual for their items back. People can be busy and hitting them while they are away can lead to more work and issues down the road.

[Lava]

Sorry I couldn't jump in here sooner, Teeny.

 

On bans from your website, I wouldn't recommend banning for "gifts" or one-sided trades by policy at all. It would be too prone to abuse by vindictive traders looking to get someone banned unfairly, and without some other factors, there's reasonable doubt about the circumstances behind the trade. If someone voluntarily sends their items to another without being scammed that was their decision, and the items rightfully belong to the new holder. It's at the new owner's sole discretion whether they want to return said items. This is the same reason SteamRep doesn't ban for a one-sided trade alone, and why we consider the trade agreement so crucial.

 

Furthermore, I would recommend against using any kind of gifting arrangement (such as returned gifts) in measuring one's reputation. For positive trust vouches, 2 or more partners could easily end up using that to mutually farm their reputation, eroding the credibility of other legitimate reputation from paypal trading. I can understand if you want to encourage or incentivize that kind of selfless behavior within your community, but I think it would come at a cost to the hard-earned reputation for your other members, and people will use this as an opportunity to farm reputation and appear more trustworthy than they really are. Negative trust would be subject to the same kind of abuse I described with bans, and could be used to try and maliciously harm someone's reputation. Therefore, I would recommend against using refusal to return "gifted" items for it as well, unless you can find some other reasonable suspicion of foul play by the recipient.

 

That said, I wouldn't object if you looked for other reasonable suspicion of foul play in such trades as a reason to ban (not my place to anyway). On a personal level, I'd be more worried about +/- trust comments than I would about site bans. SteamRep tries to follow a very strict set of guidelines in the interest of transparency, consistency, and fairness, so that means we have to toss a lot of cases out even if we reasonably suspect foul play was involved, simply because we can't prove it beyond reasonable doubt. But we still very much condone other community leaders banning said culprit from their own sites or servers on their own initiative if they feel it makes their community safer, cleaner, or they simply don't want to allow such toxic behavior. That case I was asked about where items were traded in exchange for "having Muselk add you" I was asked about I think a few years ago is a prime example of this - well outside SteamRep's strict investigative policy, but also well within backpack.tf's rights to ban over at their sole discretion. What standard of evidence you follow for this is up to your admins, should you choose to go that route. As long as you're not using bans to coerce or intimidate your members or anything crazy like that, we don't police other communities' bans at SteamRep, so the consistency of your bans or rigidity of your rules leading up to bans are up to your leadership.

[3.50]

I'm glad this was opened for discussion.  I always appreciate openness, so thanks for that.

 

I'm honestly very curious about such situations, and what's the correct thing to do (not to be confused with the right thing to do).

 

I'm not any kind of expert in legal matters, but the legal nature of things was brought up and I recently downloaded some googles on my computer machine, so I decided to take a look.

I couldn't easily find any legal information on virtual items specifically (beyond currency), but the scenario of "accidental gifting" seems very similar to the well-known scenario of accidentally transferring money to the wrong bank account.

 

In both scenarios, it's an intangible item(s) that is transferred from one owner to another, and the action taken to transfer it was not intentional (that is, the specific steps may have been intentional, but the end result was not the desired one).  There is quite a bit of legal precedent for what happens in the case of an erroneous bank transfer.

 

What happens is this in a nutshell: the recipient does not get to keep the money.  They have to return the money, and if they spend the money, it's legally considered theft, and they can (and often will) be charged with various crimes.  This should explain it fairly succinctly: https://www.money.co.uk/guides/can-you-keep-money-accidentally-paid-into-your-bank-account.htm

 

The only real argument I've seen against what I'm saying is the idea that the victim gives consent when he sends the offer.  "He had to confirm three separate times".  To me, this is completely shot down by the way erroneous bank transfers are handled--obviously someone had to confirm sending you that money for free, and you still aren't allowed to keep it, and you still could go to jail if you spend it.

 

Basically, if some guy accidentally gives you something, and you know that he didn't mean to give it to you and you still keep it, it's theft. There's not really a grey area there.  A bit of research has led me to the following conclusion:

 

If someone receives items in error, is aware that it was an error, and still refuses to return them, that person's legally considered a thief in possession of stolen goods.

If you don't agree with or fully understand this statement, I can point you to some legal text that backs it up.  (I would also welcome any more specific knowledge about the legal nature of such cases, if anyone has it)

 

And I don't see any good reason why virtual hats should be treated differently than any other real and virtual property/money. 

 

I know this is a private website and the people running it decide how to handle things, but I can't see any way in which a person fitting the above criteria should be anything short of banned from the site like any other scammer, because they are just as guilty of theft.  I wouldn't want them on the site if I ran it, and I don't want them on the site if I'm going to use it. 

 

On the practical side,

As far as this community, a person might be a thief, but you still have to prove it before you can take action.  If the proof is ambiguous, incomplete, or inconclusive, then your hands are pretty much tied.  But in such a case where the person who received wrongfully gifted items was (theoretically) to state that they were fully aware that the items were sent in error and they were nonetheless refusing to return them, then they have supplied you with all the proof you need.  If you did that with money, you'd be punished. So if you do it with hats, that also must result in punishment, musn't it?

 

On the personal side:

I strongly feel it is appropriate to ban people guilty of such infractions from the site, or otherwise punish as appropriate.  Not only do such actions constitute theft to my understanding, but they are also have too much in common with most scamming methods.

 The common methods of scamming involve two steps.  First to trick the victim into making a certain mistake, and secondly to deprive them of their items without their willful consent.  Although keeping accidentally gifted items lacks the first element, it still has the second, and more important one.  It's malicious behavior, something I don't want accepted by any community that I'm a part of to any degree.

 

I welcome feedback on any of this.

[naknak]

1 hour ago, Lava said:

 

If someone voluntarily sends their items to another without being scammed that was their decision, and the items rightfully belong to the new holder. It's at the new owner's sole discretion whether they want to return said items.

 

This is incorrect.  You can read the links I've provided or Google for yourself.    Either way, please do read up.  Personal opinions vary widely, which is why laws exist.

 

Civilly - the mistaken payment is owed by the recipient to the the sender, upon notification of the mistake.  The only excuse is "change of position" -- this means the recipient believed the item was a gift, or was owed to them, and they in good faith incurred expenses that they otherwise would not have, and now cannot afford to pay.

 

Criminally - keeping the items with knowledge of the mistake becomes theft when the recipient takes steps to prevent repayment with knowledge of the mistake.   With banks, this usually means withdrawing funds so that the bank can't recover them.  With items, simply refusing to pay is the same thing.  Obviously not every country is the same, but in my brief research I've found this theme of "keeping is theft" repeated in the US, Canada, the UK, South Africa, and Australia. 

[JayTuut]

Dunno, they shouldnt be banned and -trust and +trusts get removed randomly for no reason sometimes, like i just recently got a 3 year old +trust removed off someone i did a transcation with.

 

 

I mean, I think it's technically your fault, but steam should allow you to put your own trade hold on a trade. Say you accept it you're allowed to have a "1 hour accept hold" to cancel the trade offer, but both items are put in hold. I mean obviously people could abuse this so maybe the items shouldnt be frozen but anyway.

 

it just really makes them untrustworthy, I don't think a -trust or ban is needed, just makes them untrustworthy I guess.

 

I do like what @3.50 said though, it is theft I guess if you go and resell them...... But im kinda mixed about this, leaning more towards the "do nothing" side tho

[Woifi The Viking]

2 hours ago, Lava said:

Furthermore, I would recommend against using any kind of gifting arrangement (such as returned gifts) in measuring one's reputation. For positive trust vouches, 2 or more partners could easily end up using that to mutually farm their reputation, eroding the credibility of other legitimate reputation from paypal trading. I can understand if you want to encourage or incentivize that kind of selfless behavior within your community, but I think it would come at a cost to the hard-earned reputation for your other members, and people will use this as an opportunity to farm reputation and appear more trustworthy than they really are. Negative trust would be subject to the same kind of abuse I described with bans, and could be used to try and maliciously harm someone's reputation. Therefore, I would recommend against using refusal to return "gifted" items for it as well, unless you can find some other reasonable suspicion of foul play by the recipient.

I don't see this being a big issue. Every person can only leave trust for another person at a time, and if someone gets 10+ trusts for returning "accidental" gifts then it's pretty suspicious.

 

10 minutes ago, ḎℰѦÐ! Boom said:

Dunno, they shouldnt be banned and -trust and +trusts get removed randomly for no reason sometimes, like i just recently got a 3 year old +trust removed off someone i did a transcation with.

....

it just really makes them untrustworthy, I don't think a -trust or ban is needed, just makes them untrustworthy I guess.

Maybe they got marked as a scammer or deleted the trust themselves? Or it simply didn't meet the requirements.

If something makes someone "untrustworthy" don't you think a -trust is exactly for that? Like it's even in the name...

[JayTuut]

21 minutes ago, Woifilicious said:

I don't see this being a big issue. Every person can only leave trust for another person at a time, and if someone gets 10+ trusts for returning "accidental" gifts then it's pretty suspicious.

 

Maybe they got marked as a scammer or deleted the trust themselves? Or it simply didn't meet the requirements.

If something makes someone "untrustworthy" don't you think a -trust is exactly for that? Like it's even in the name...

 

Eh, -trusts are pretty harsh tho. Idk.

 

I mean if u want you can leave a -trust I guess, i wouldnt be opposed to that.

[Fragstealer]

You are (imo) devaluing your own trust system if you do something like this and opening it up to abuse(as per lava commentary). People make  horrible mistakes, they generally learn from those mistakes. That's life. There are a lot of assholes out there that will jump on that mistake, that is also life.

I understand the sentiment however so what if you apply a 500 key amount rather than 15 keys, people are making real world comparisons, no one would chase 15 keys in the real world, in legal fees it is just not worth it, it needs to be valuable to be valid. An outlier when most say are 1-100 keys and the exception is >500, it's an outlier and deserving of action as the moral obligation is higher given the value. I can't think this situation happens very often anyhow. My 2 cents.

[naknak]

19 minutes ago, Fragstealer said:

. There are a lot of assholes out there that will jump on that mistake, that is also life.

 

I lost $700 to a chargeback scammer and I should have known better.  There were red flags everywhere.  Every kind of scam requires a mistake on the victim's part.  

 

Taking advantage of the mistake is what causes the loss.  "Provoking the mistake" versus "lucking into it" is important too, but much less important than how a person reacts.

 

Trust should identify people who take advantage of mistakes in a dishonest way. 

[RED265]

10 hours ago, 3.50 said:

I'm glad this was opened for discussion.  I always appreciate openness, so thanks for that.

 

I'm honestly very curious about such situations, and what's the correct thing to do (not to be confused with the right thing to do).

 

I'm not any kind of expert in legal matters, but the legal nature of things was brought up and I recently downloaded some googles on my computer machine, so I decided to take a look.

I couldn't easily find any legal information on virtual items specifically (beyond currency), but the scenario of "accidental gifting" seems very similar to the well-known scenario of accidentally transferring money to the wrong bank account.

 

In both scenarios, it's an intangible item(s) that is transferred from one owner to another, and the action taken to transfer it was not intentional (that is, the specific steps may have been intentional, but the end result was not the desired one).  There is quite a bit of legal precedent for what happens in the case of an erroneous bank transfer.

 

What happens is this in a nutshell: the recipient does not get to keep the money.  They have to return the money, and if they spend the money, it's legally considered theft, and they can (and often will) be charged with various crimes.  This should explain it fairly succinctly: https://www.money.co.uk/guides/can-you-keep-money-accidentally-paid-into-your-bank-account.htm

 

The only real argument I've seen against what I'm saying is the idea that the victim gives consent when he sends the offer.  "He had to confirm three separate times".  To me, this is completely shot down by the way erroneous bank transfers are handled--obviously someone had to confirm sending you that money for free, and you still aren't allowed to keep it, and you still could go to jail if you spend it.

 

Basically, if some guy accidentally gives you something, and you know that he didn't mean to give it to you and you still keep it, it's theft. There's not really a grey area there.  A bit of research has led me to the following conclusion:

 

If someone receives items in error, is aware that it was an error, and still refuses to return them, that person's legally considered a thief in possession of stolen goods.

If you don't agree with or fully understand this statement, I can point you to some legal text that backs it up.  (I would also welcome any more specific knowledge about the legal nature of such cases, if anyone has it)

 

And I don't see any good reason why virtual hats should be treated differently than any other real and virtual property/money. 

 

I know this is a private website and the people running it decide how to handle things, but I can't see any way in which a person fitting the above criteria should be anything short of banned from the site like any other scammer, because they are just as guilty of theft.  I wouldn't want them on the site if I ran it, and I don't want them on the site if I'm going to use it. 

 

On the practical side,

As far as this community, a person might be a thief, but you still have to prove it before you can take action.  If the proof is ambiguous, incomplete, or inconclusive, then your hands are pretty much tied.  But in such a case where the person who received wrongfully gifted items was (theoretically) to state that they were fully aware that the items were sent in error and they were nonetheless refusing to return them, then they have supplied you with all the proof you need.  If you did that with money, you'd be punished. So if you do it with hats, that also must result in punishment, musn't it?

 

On the personal side:

I strongly feel it is appropriate to ban people guilty of such infractions from the site, or otherwise punish as appropriate.  Not only do such actions constitute theft to my understanding, but they are also have too much in common with most scamming methods.

 The common methods of scamming involve two steps.  First to trick the victim into making a certain mistake, and secondly to deprive them of their items without their willful consent.  Although keeping accidentally gifted items lacks the first element, it still has the second, and more important one.  It's malicious behavior, something I don't want accepted by any community that I'm a part of to any degree.

 

I welcome feedback on any of this.

I was actually considering and discussing this to someone in a case of a paypal scammer. As you said, it is considered theft and liable for criminal prosecution. However, 2 giant loopholes exist in the scenario. A) is the good a tangible asset(virtual items are generally considered not), and b ) is it stated in the terms and conditions of tf2 that the good in qns is considered their property? If yes, ownership of the good was never the victim's arguably, and as such the scammer is not liable for prosecution under theft. Just a couple of points noted in my research

[naknak]

23 minutes ago, RED265 said:

is the good a tangible asset(virtual items are generally considered not),

 

"Tangible" means "having physical form."  No "considered" about it.  Money in a bank account is not tangible either.  Not relevant. 

 

The legal standard is "unjust enrichment" in any form.

 

24 minutes ago, RED265 said:

b ) is it stated in the terms and conditions of tf2 that the good in qns is considered their property? If yes, ownership of the good was never the victim's arguably, and as such the scammer is not liable for prosecution under theft.

 

This exact situation applies to funds in a bank account (you don't own them; the bank does, and commits to pay you that amount on demand).  Changes nothing.  

 

The elements of a claim are:

• defendant has been enriched or received a benefit
• the enrichment is unjust
• the defendant’s enrichment has come at the expense of the claimant

 

Does the situation tick all of these boxes?  Was the defendant made aware of the situation before incurring expenses that would prevent him from repaying?  Then the money (or whatever) is owed to the sender, period, and refusal is theft.

[RED265]

9 hours ago, naknak said:

 

"Tangible" means "having physical form."  No "considered" about it.  Money in a bank account is not tangible either.  Not relevant. 

 

The legal standard is "unjust enrichment" in any form.

 

 

This exact situation applies to funds in a bank account (you don't own them; the bank does, and commits to pay you that amount on demand).  Changes nothing.  

 

The elements of a claim are:

• defendant has been enriched or received a benefit
• the enrichment is unjust
• the defendant’s enrichment has come at the expense of the claimant

 

Does the situation tick all of these boxes?  Was the defendant made aware of the situation before incurring expenses that would prevent him from repaying?  Then the money (or whatever) is owed to the sender, period, and refusal is theft.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/oliverherzfeld/2012/12/04/what-is-the-legal-status-of-virtual-goods/#11980cc108a2

[Teeny Tiny Cat]

I will reply more at length when not at work but I would like to point out that whether or not it's legal is not a particularly strong argument for why a privately owned and run website is responsible for enforcing it. Plenty of things are against the law that have absolutely nothing to do with us. Harrassment is against the law but I'm not banning people on backpack.tf for harrassment on steam because it has nothing to do with our website. We're not the police or a court of law. I stated clearly in the OP but I'll repeat; legal arguments hold little weight with me.

 

The only strong argument I see for banning is the removal of toxic people from our community.

[Tasty Salamanders]

No one has brought it up, but what about a situation of accidental gifting where the gift is only partially given back?

 

i.e. Someone gets the accidental gift and proceeds to give some of it back out of a bit of "generosity" but kept the rest because they weren't obligated to give any back in the first place?

 

On 16/12/2017 at 2:40 AM, naknak said:

A lot of people think that playground rules like "finders keepers" apply here.   The law is much more stringent and regards keeping mistaken remittances as theft - a serious crime.  It's been in the news a few times: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/05/australian-teenager-went-on-the-run-after-bank-accidentally-gave/

 

Just want to reply to that one story because a judge eventually said it was the bank's fault and the person in question wasn't at fault and the charges were eventually dropped because another person who had the same thing happen to them (by a different Australian bank) had charges against them thrown out in court too: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/student-given-46m-in-westpac-overdraft-error-may-not-have-broken-law-magistrate-20160505-gomxti.html and http://www.news.com.au/finance/business/banking/malaysian-student-who-went-on-46-million-spree-cleared/news-story/3e936f30c3f846d8ae7a0f5ff8bc5b97

 

Basically under Australian common law; if a bank accidentally gives people money it is the bank's fault.

 

I mean, Teeny Tiny Cat already said they aren't too concerned about what the law says because bp.tf isn't the law. But in this case even the law isn't as clear as you might think.

[3.50]

20 minutes ago, Tasty Salamanders said:

 http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/student-given-46m-in-westpac-overdraft-error-may-not-have-broken-law-magistrate-20160505-gomxti.html

Basically under Australian common law; if a bank accidentally gives people money it is the bank's fault.

 

In that case, no one gave her anything, accidental or otherwise.  They instead accidentally set the amount she was allowed to overdraft to "unlimited".  An overdraft, if you aren't familiar, is basically a short-term loan that occurs automatically when you try to spend more money than you have in your account.  The bank allows the purchase to go through, and sets your balance to negative (and usually adds a fee).  You've also previously agreed to this arrangement by opening an account with them.

 

From that link:

She said the police would have difficulties proving the spending was illegal, to which Ms Stapleton agreed.

...

If that was the case, she would owe the bank the money she has spent but she wouldn't have broken the law, Ms Stapleton added.

 

So you don't go to jail for it, but it still isn't yours and you still don't get to keep it. 

[Teeny Tiny Cat]

33 minutes ago, 3.50 said:

So you don't go to jail for it, but it still isn't yours and you still don't get to keep it. 

 

And here lies part of the problem with talking about the law when we're actually a private commercial website and community - we can't make people give items back. We have no power beyond stopping them using our website. And generally people aren't banned from commercial sites (or even IRL shops) because they broke the law. Stealing something and being prosecuted either criminally or civilly doesn't result in your being barred from the internet, shops, social venues, etc. The one has nothing to do with the other. So whether or not keeping accidentally gifted virtual items is legal or not is utterly irrelevant to this decision.

 

If you think it's illegal and want justice under law, go to the police. We are not the police. We are a hat website.