Geshy Reddy

As we all are aware, recently a student from the Walter Sisulu University erroneously received a whopping R14.1 million in her bank account. She spent almost a million rand since the blunder has been identified.

This created an absolute frenzy on social and radio media, so I thought I would shed some light on the matter.

Besides it being immoral, it’s deemed illegal as per legislation.

According to the Payments Associations of South Africa: “The paying customer has the right to the return of these funds through the rule of unjust enrichment and the banks will assist him or her where possible to affect such recovery.”

While this student was not liable for the money being transferred into her personal bank account, she is guilty of helping herself to money, which clearly was not hers.

The first thing she should have done was alerted the National Student Financial Aid Scheme of their miscalculation.

Also, banks are not allowed to remove funds from an individual’s account without their permission, so she could have also taken the necessary steps to ensure the funds were returned by dealing with her bank. So if funds are inadvertently deposited into your bank account, please don’t be tempted to help yourself to it or be creative in justifying why you did.

Best save yourself from legal action being taken against you, not to mention potential irredeemable reputational damage and do the correct thing by taking the obligatory steps to return the funds – after all it’s the right thing to do!

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