Originally Posted by
Bluebeard
Joking aside, it actually distresses me to see how many people seem to favour the idea of just keeping it.
Someone somewhere is out of pocket - possibly someone who can afford it, but nonetheless, it is not a "victimless crime". For those folk professing (or protesting) any degree of Christian faith, would you like this to happen to you? For those of us who are not Christians, similarly, how does essentially taking something belonging to another fit in with your own world view?
I dislike banks more than the next man (It was a huge wrench to make me give up the Bank of Sock Drawer a second time on moving to London), but the banks are like the banker at casinos - they don't lose, you don't beat them. If you "get away with it", someone else will end up stumping up, or, as likely as not, everyone will somehow. When interest rates change and banks report poor trading, note that this translates normally into their rate of profit growth decreasing, not their actual profits. And in cases where banks make a lesser profit - not NO profit, never mind a deficit - who gets charged extra for the transactions? Indeed, you could say that taking someone else's money is essentially what the banks do - it doesn't happen if you keep it in the Sock Drawer. Don't give them an excuse, and don't become like them.