Suddenly being transferred “wrong”: Return the money or report to the police?

Mar 18, 2022 08:19 GMT+7

Some objects use the trick of “mistaken transfer” to cheat

According to information from Hanoi City Police, recently, there has been a scam “transferring the wrong money”, targeting people who are gullible and gullible. After knowing the victim’s information, the subjects will deliberately transfer a wrong amount of money to the “prey”. The scammer will act as a debt collector of a financial company, forcing the victim to pay with exorbitant interest.

As in the case of Ms. NTA (Ba Dinh, Hanoi), Ms. A. suddenly received more than 45 million VND transferred to her bank account with confusing attachments. At the end of the afternoon of the same day, a strange zalo account befriended her and said that the financial company had disbursed the loan amount.

In their own words, Sister A. became a debtor. But Ms. A. found herself not doing any loan procedures online.

Days later, the subject of “wrong” money transfer kept texting back and forth, with content threatening to reclaim the money along with interest.

Talking to a VOV.VN reporter, lawyer Ha Thi Son (Sen Vang Law Firm – Hanoi Bar Association) said: “If you suddenly receive money from other people without an agreement, it’s a case. possession without a legal basis and must return the money to the property owner”.

According to Clause 1, Article 597 of the Civil Code 2015: “A person possessing or using another person’s property without a legal basis must return it to the owner or holder of other rights to such property. ; if the owner or other right holder cannot be found, the property must be handed over to a competent state agency, except for the case specified in Article 236 of the 2015 Civil Code.

The act of mistakenly transferring money and then threatening to collect debt from others is a violation of the law, may be criminally handled and has signs of fraud to appropriate property according to the provisions of Article 174 of the Penal Code 2015. amended in 2017, with the maximum penalty frame up to 20 years in prison.

When seeing unusual signs, coordinate with police agencies and banks

According to lawyer Ha Thi Son, when someone mistakenly transfers money to their account and threatens to collect debt, people need to go to the police station to report and request investigation, verification and handling of acts according to regulations. provisions of law; coordinate with the bank to carry out procedures under the guidance of the police agency for the purpose of refunding the amount and handling the acts of intimidation and groundless debt collection.

According to information from the Hanoi City Police, when people fall into this situation, they need to take the following steps:

First, do not use that money for personal expenses. If it is a real money transfer, there will be a bank representative to contact to work or people can actively contact the bank to notify.

If it is a small amount, the account holder can ask the bank to provide a statement, then compare with the information received and proceed to transfer. As for large amounts, the account holder should arrange a time to go directly to the bank branch for verification. Or people can contact the police to solve.

People absolutely do not transfer money back to strangers without a third party witnessing, to avoid trouble later. At the same time, do not transfer the refund to an account other than the one transferred to you, you must wait for the bank to settle it first.

When you receive a phone call from your bank, you need to check that it is the correct number of the bank. To be more sure, the account holder should go to the bank to work directly.

In particular, never give the OTP code, username, and password of a bank account to anyone, even if they claim to be friends of bank employees or authorities.

According to vov.vn