If I was on the receiving end of something like this I’d just give the money back.
Don't know if I'd give away 1 million.
Remember When You Named Your Girlfriend as a Beneficiary? He Didn't Either
11–20 of 55 posts
Re: Remember When You Named Your Girlfriend as a Beneficiary? He Didn't Either
#12If I was on the receiving end of something like this I’d just give the money back.
Easy to say when not only is it not happening to you but you haven't spent years engaging with the legal process and waiting for the estate to try and make sure you can't have it. The possibility of winning a jackpot would grow on you, you'd start to imagine what it would be like to keep it and the brothers, being your adversaries, would look less deserving than they do to an outsider.
Re: Remember When You Named Your Girlfriend as a Beneficiary? He Didn't Either
#13If I was on the receiving end of something like this I’d just give the money back.
Easy to say when not only is it not happening to you but you haven't spent years engaging with the legal process and waiting for the estate to try and make sure you can't have it. The possibility of winning a jackpot would grow on you, you'd start to imagine what it would be like to keep it and the brothers, being your adversaries, would look less deserving than they do to an outsider.
I suppose it depends.
If this person had intentionally done this to my benefit over their children and it was current then sure I'd take the money.
But if it's a 50 years old out of date commitment to a life long gone and there are other genuinely more deserving in terms of being actually children then yeah I'd give it to them.
I'd just see it as a kind of a bank error. If the bank drops 1 million bucks into your account what would you do? I'd give it back. There have been cases reported of this in Australia where people do spend the money that the bank inadvertently puts in their account - I find that hard to understand. Actually I find it easy to understand but disappointing that people are so willing to do the crime just because its offered to them easy. Not suggested that in the case of this will it would be a crime, just suggesting that there's a right thing to do.
And I have done stuff like that. About 30 years ago I got paid about $7,000 for a software job by a client then got paid a second time. I just called em up and gave it back.
Re: Remember When You Named Your Girlfriend as a Beneficiary? He Didn't Either
#14If I was on the receiving end of something like this I’d just give the money back.
Easy to say when not only is it not happening to you but you haven't spent years engaging with the legal process and waiting for the estate to try and make sure you can't have it. The possibility of winning a jackpot would grow on you, you'd start to imagine what it would be like to keep it and the brothers, being your adversaries, would look less deserving than they do to an outsider.
> but you haven't spent years engaging with the legal process and waiting for the estate to try and make sure you can't have it
I mean in the proposed alternative that wouldn't happen because you would tell them "hey I think this is a mistake, i think he just forgot to update the beneficiary". You only have the years of legal process where you decide that you should keep the money.
Re: Remember When You Named Your Girlfriend as a Beneficiary? He Didn't Either
#15If I was on the receiving end of something like this I’d just give the money back.
Many wouldnt though. An statement by rich software developer does not extend to a significant part of a population.
Wealth doesn't breed morality. Morality is something that cuts across all wealth lines. Poor people aren't all criminals and rich people aren't all saints.
Re: Remember When You Named Your Girlfriend as a Beneficiary? He Didn't Either
#16If I was on the receiving end of something like this I’d just give the money back.
Many wouldnt though. An statement by rich software developer does not extend to a significant part of a population.
If only I was rich. I'm not. As the other commenter says, doing the right thing isn't about money. Integrity is doing the right thing even when no-one is looking.
Re: Remember When You Named Your Girlfriend as a Beneficiary? He Didn't Either
#17Re: Remember When You Named Your Girlfriend as a Beneficiary? He Didn't Either
#18TLDR: A person named a girlfriend as a retirement plan beneficiary. They later broke up, he had another girlfriend, they eventually also broke up, and 10 years after the second breakup he died single and childless.
His brothers want money to go to estate (brothers), but the beneficiary form trumped estate (as it should).
It is not clear from reading the post what the account owner wanted. It is possible he just didn't care who gets the money after he died.
The advice makes sense though -- if you want specific beneficiaries, name them on your accounts.
Re: Remember When You Named Your Girlfriend as a Beneficiary? He Didn't Either
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
> back To whom? The deceased person?
Yeah. To their "estate". It's mentioned that some of his assets that didn't have a beneficiary named landed there and I think they were to be split according to the will of the deceased.
There was no will, no spouse, no children.
"He died at 59, single and childless, with no will and no guidance on who should inherit his assets."
Re: Remember When You Named Your Girlfriend as a Beneficiary? He Didn't Either
#20The article seems to imply we are sure this was all by mistake. I don't share this view.
If the deceased created an account for Murray (ex-girlfriend), and later removed Murray as the second beneficiary from another asset (but kept other ex-girlfriend Sjostedt on the same), then this may be what he intended.
As a single guy, providing part of your assets to two former partners (one might say common law wives, given they cohabited longer-term) that shared in your life or parts of it is reasonable, especially given that there are other assets that went to the brothers, so his funeral was covered and his next of kin can still enjoy the life insurance etc.
Maybe there is a case to be made for 1. not filling in beneficiary forms and 2. leaving behind a will (with a notary public) to remove ambiguity, especially when arrangements are unusual.