lardyl

anyone else find that Kiwis are very keen on "finders keepers"?
We have found that in some areas, particularly the rural ones around here, that some folks just hold on to anything they can get their hands on, in our experience mainly hats and other stuff you might drop.......maybe its the frontier spirit or some sort of survival instinct...??
But then if a kid loses their shoes at school the parents sometimes feel too ashamed to go rummaging through lost property. All very odd to us Pomms.......

scrubbedexpat094

Not by the number of shoes I see on the road. Given that shoes are expensive here, I can't believe how careless peeps are with them .

Genesis

Yes we all know they do that but I get the feeling MOST banks are waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay to greedy. Look at the HUGE profits they make. I certainly have no love of them. And all what they do stated above how much do they make out of us.

southerner

As a shareholder in a bank I do wish that were true.

Genesis

So they don't make loads of money..and they aren't the 'fat cats'?? Most people do appear to have a certain degree of disdain and mistrust re banks. Most of us have to use them. Charging 30 GBP to write you a letter about your overdraft etc has not put them in a good light. I don't think joe average has much time for your high st bank....as I say they are a necessity for most of us. Look how ANZ sold their customers a 'low risk' investment then they lost hundreds of millions of the punters money in a very short time. All the experts agreed that the amount of loss was sooooooooooooooooooooooooooo huge it should never have been deemed 'low risk'.

Am Loolah

Personally, if I had been them I'd have waited to see if I won tonight's $16 million lotto first - just to top it up ...

CarolineSwan

All i can say is good on them, its not theft and they cant be charged with it , i to would love balls like theirs genisis .. has anyone ever been to bank to withdraw cash from hole in the wall? and been given an extra 20 quid? who that has, has walked into bank and handed it in?

the bank has loads of profits and as their mistake so their fault, its not going to be taken out of others accounts.. how bad and silly would they look then

wonder what i would spend the money on ...apart from shoes that is

scrubbedexpat094

This hasn't happened to me but, yes I would give the money back. I think it says alot about a person's character & how honest they are.

CarolineSwan

this happens in britain too..my gran put out her old matress and a microwave that was 27 year old a few weeks ago for council to uplift , with in an hour that night people had taken it from her doorstep... omg who would lol

i bought lucy new trainers on her way to swimming last month , you know the ones that flash lights when they walk... well we came out of swimming and i realised i had left them in changing room before we went swimming , i was like omg we only bought them this morning... got out to reception and there they were , couldnt believe it , my exp of that in britain is they would have been stolen

CarolineSwan

well im the person that gets outside safeway , and while getting in taxi realise i hadnt paid for toilet roll( you know the pack of 9 that hangs on trolly) so unpack taxi and return to pay for it... would hate to go back in and be barred lol

but no , i still say once its in there account . it is theres and while lots wouldnt spend it, they have taken the oppertunity they have been given and done so, i certainly dont feel badness towards them. i say good luck

scrubbedexpat094

We shall have to agree to disagree

CarolineSwan

yea, i agree I probably couldnt spend the money but who knows maybe they saw the ammount and was just like omg we are rich and ran, maybe they are now feeling bad but too embarassed to come home with it. i supposse none of us can really know for sure until it happened to us, its l;ike saying ..even if i won the lottery id still go to work... you just never know lol

scrubbedexpat094

Did I not win the lottery last night then . I have BIG plans for that money . As I've already given up work, I certainly wouldn't go back

sr71

It's fraud in the UK too. Even if you tell the truth on the application, but deliberately intend to not pay back the money, by absconding or going bankrupt then it is fraud. But as I said it's almost impossible to prove that peoples intent was to not pay the loan back in most cases.

lardyl

the first example is not stealing, its re-use/recycling and all to the good - its a thing that the Kiwis do really well, we've ended up with a perfectly functional kid's bike, firewood, etc that way.

the second example seems rather odd as being a contrast to what these people have done with Westpac's money - so if someone picks up something that someone else has left behind somewhere that is "stealing" (particularly if its yours and brand new) but if someone knowingly profits from an organisation's mistake and then flees the country this is "good luck".......

whether something is a crime does not depend upon the ability of the victim to pay or cover the cost.........and in fact if these people disappear off into the sunset with the money or even some of it then *we all pay*, like in the cases of insurance fraud, even if it is just that others see that they can get away with it so it becomes more "acceptable". This means you're on a slippery slope to wherever......its similar to the reason that governments don't deal with terrorists. If you make the law an ass, even if its common law, then everyone suffers.