Should governments be allowed to steal money from "idle" bank accounts?

radcen said:

If it belongs to no one, it's not stealing.

And if it's not stealing, why is a random charity any more worthy than the government? What makes them so special? In most cases *I* might pick a random charity over the government, but there's some I would not... I'd pick the government first.

And even if we did go with a random charity, who chooses? I don't know about you, but I can certainly envision lots of charges of favoritism and possible lawsuits over said randomness.

Click to expand...

Because in many cases as in the OP stories they are not waiting until the person is dead to claim the money. They are snooping through bank accounts to look for accounts that have been idle for at least 3-5 years in order to steal the money.It is a bad precedent when the government is snooping through bank accounts to claim.

As for why charities it ensures that neither the bank or government are fraudulently claiming the accounts are idle in order to take the money.

As for choosing the randomness of the charities maybe the bank can pick random customers, maybe have kids enter a contest to donate the money to charities of their choice.It would be good publicity of the banks

MaggieD said:

The government should be able to confiscate abandoned funds. After! it's made every attempt to locate the owner. I'd say five-years-idle might be a general rule. Anything less than five years, in my opinion, is inappropriate.

Click to expand...

As long as any reasonable probability exists that the rightful owner of that account will return to claim it, government has no business touching it.

No reason at all why someone shouldn't be able to go for some long journey exploring obscure parts of the world, out of touch with any known civilization, and return many years later, and expect to find his bank accounts still intact and in order.

If you'd said a hundred years rather than five years, then perhaps there'd be something to discuss. By that time, it is very likely that the rightful owner of that account is no longer alive.

MaggieD said:

What's your suggestion? An account has been dormant with $50 in it for 20 years. What should happen to it? Should we trust that the bank will make a good faith effort to locate the person or his heirs? Or should the bank give it to the state for safe-keeping where the state can maintain a website where people like me can search occasionally for any accounts they've lost track of?

And....after 5 years, what do YOU suggest the state then do with that money?

Click to expand...

Five years is not long enough; ten years is not long enough; twenty years is not long enough, to assume that the rightful owner of that account isn't still alive, and will not eventually come back and claim it.

If you put $50 in a saving's account, and disappeared for a while, and came back twenty or thirty or forty years later, and tried to access that account, and found it was no longer there, then you would rightfully be able to say that you were robbed.

jamesrage said:

Should governments be allowed to steal money from "idle" bank accounts? I used the word theft instead of confiscate because this is flat out theft.
Yes
No
maybe after a specific amount of time(please specify)




Government's $360m bank account grab | Money Saver HQ (MSHQ)

Not-So-Safe-Deposit Boxes: States Seize Citizens' Property to Balance Their Budgets - ABC News

Introducing the newest tactic for governments to raise cash







I voted no. Governments have no business stealing your money, I could care less if you haven't deposited anything in your account or touched your account in six months, 60 years or 600 years.

Click to expand...

Only for criminals and drug lords...

Bob Blaylock said:

As long as any reasonable probability exists that the rightful owner of that account will return to claim it, government has no business touching it.

No reason at all why someone shouldn't be able to go for some long journey exploring obscure parts of the world, out of touch with any known civilization, and return many years later, and expect to find his bank accounts still intact and in order.

If you'd said a hundred years rather than five years, then perhaps there'd be something to discuss. By that time, it is very likely that the rightful owner of that account is no longer alive.

Click to expand...

Federal and/or state regulations define dormant accounts. When an account has had no activity within a certain period of time, most often five years, the bank sends notification to the last known address. If the owner of the account does not respond, the money is turned over to the state. In Illinois, there's a website put up by the state of Illinois where people can search. As I've said in this thread, I've found thousands of dollars (prolly $5K or so) for clients, friends and relatives.

How long the state keeps it until it reverts to wherever it reverts to (if anywhere) I have no idea.

States grab unclaimed property