Live data from Hacker News

NY Payroll Company Vanishes with $35M

krebsonsecurity.com

41–50 of 94 posts

Re: NY Payroll Company Vanishes with $35M

#41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure if you find a bag of money on public property, you're under no obligation to actually return it.

Does that apply to any property that isn't yours?

That's way too broad of a question. They can try and prosecute you for anything. Whether it succeeds depends heavily on the specific circumstances.

Re: NY Payroll Company Vanishes with $35M

#42
Besides the banking issues, when do the people get paid?

If the disappeared payroll company got money from employers, it's possible some employers may not have enough cash to pay a second time.

Then they out of business, or close to it.

The old businessman's phrase "You've never had to meet a payroll" is really meaningful here, the scramble to pay everyone.

Re: NY Payroll Company Vanishes with $35M

#43
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure if you find a bag of money on public property, you're under no obligation to actually return it.

This is not correct. If you find a bag of money (or, much more common: a wallet) and you can identify the owner you are obligated to return it. Not doing so is a crime. As it should be.

California Civil Code section 2080.1 for example

"the person saving or finding the property shall, if the property is of the value of one hundred dollars ($100) or more, within a reasonable time turn the property over to the police department of the city"

https://codes.findlaw.com/ca/civil-code/civ-sect-2080-1.html

Re: NY Payroll Company Vanishes with $35M

#44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does that apply to any property that isn't yours?

That's way too broad of a question. They can try and prosecute you for anything. Whether it succeeds depends heavily on the specific circumstances.

The broadness is more in the specific laws in your jurisdiction. However ask yourself if you think these situations are different:

If you find $10k in cash in a bag

If you find a $10k car parked on the street

If you find the latest iphone sitting on a table

Re: NY Payroll Company Vanishes with $35M

#45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's way too broad of a question. They can try and prosecute you for anything. Whether it succeeds depends heavily on the specific circumstances.

The broadness is more in the specific laws in your jurisdiction. However ask yourself if you think these situations are different: If you find $10k in cash in a bag If you find a $10k car parked on the street If you find the latest iphone sitting on a table

Specific laws aside, the pattern of facts still matters a lot.

I get what you're getting at but I'm saying that there are plenty of details that matter regardless of ease of proof that the object isn't yours or whether or not it's foreseeable have been left there under "reasonable" circumstances

Cars and phones are trivially easy to track back to their owner, with cash possession is basically ownership. Cars get parked places, phones get left places, cash does not get left lying around and if you leave cash somewhere you basically forfeit ownership of it since that's the cultural norm since ownership can't be proven.

The specific facts and details matter very much. Time and attempts to find the property by the owner are particularly important. There's a very big difference between leaving your phone at a bar and leaving your phone at a bar for a week, in the latter case the bartender has a nice new phone they can use.

Re: NY Payroll Company Vanishes with $35M

#46
post #32

Since this is sort of my beat: If this ever happens to you, immediately call bank, say “Electronic transaction posted in error.”, specifically identify the transaction, and ask what address the bank takes Regulation E written complaints at. If the CSR doesn’t know that answer, their supervisor does, or in the alternative FedEx HQ addressed to chief counsel or head of compliance. The letter just needs to state transac…

Hey Patrick, I'm surprised to see "this is sort of [your] beat". Do transactions like this happen to you often? What sort of speed-to-recovery do you see when you take this approach?

Re: NY Payroll Company Vanishes with $35M

#47

In the US anyone with your bank account number can debit your account irreversibly? In Europe (with SEPA Core) we have 8 weeks to reject any debit even if the entity issuing the debit has a signed mandate to debit the account.

NACHA just uses FTP for their file transfers too

Re: NY Payroll Company Vanishes with $35M

#48
post #12

Why such a complicated transfer chain just to pay salaries? In my country you just export a bank file from your payroll system and that's it.

I suspect it's partly because there's a complicated employment arrangement going on, with the employees being sorta employed by the payroll management company ("employer of record"), and sorta employed by the company they actually work for, which then pays the payroll management company to handle all that stuff so they don't have to.

Re: NY Payroll Company Vanishes with $35M

#49
post #7

ACH reversals are horrible when they mistakenly happen. They really are a selling point for getting paid in cryptocurrency.

Yeah, until you need to pay rent, loans, credit cards, or buy groceries, or prove you are paying folks at least minimum wage.

Re: NY Payroll Company Vanishes with $35M

#50
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that this doesn't protect you and you would just end up over drafting your account, resulting in fees.

Overdraft fees caused by fraud will probably be reversed. I have never heard of it not happening -- it would be a terrible PR for a bank that allowed for it. It will simply take time.

It ought to be a regulatory incident, not just bad PR.
Post reply on HN