[morellomax]

"basically if you accept something that the giver had no right to give you, you can lose it."

That's generally true, but the "nemo dat" rule doesn't apply to cash:

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=...20race&f=false

[MrPogle]

I'm not sure if you are agreeing or disagreeing with me. If the transaction takes place with physical bank-notes the chain is broken and there can be no concept of retrieving those notes afterwards. Is that right?

[morellomax]

Hi Mr P, I'm politely disagreeing. Whether it's physical bank notes or just adjustments to bank balances via online banking, money isn't subject to the same rule (nemo dat quod non habet - no-one can give what he doesn't own) as stuff like cars, jewellery, Sky HD boxes etc.

[morellomax]

There's some interesting discussion here, about the nemo dat rule, money and the challenge posed by systems like bitcoin:

http://jpkoning.blogspot.co.uk/2016/...l-lawyers.html

[MrPogle]

I see what you are saying and I don't claim to know much about the law as I work in banking. What I can say is, legal or not, when fraud is suspected, electronic transfers get reversed after the event. What happens then is that an investigation takes place to ascertain what are the rights and wrongs and who (if anyone) should be out of pocket. That may be the bank because the fraud was partially down to their negligence or it may be the source account for similar reasons. Whatever, you as the recipient lose the money and have to hope to get it back. You may wind up having to fight to get it back. With physical bank notes you never lose the money. I suppose it is possible that one of the other parties may fight you for it but I've never heard of this and it's a lot better place to fight from anyway.

From the banks point of view, if person A fraudulently transfers money from person B's account to person C's, it is likely that C is part of the scam or is the same person as A. Hence the best course of action is to retrieve the money if possible and then investigate.

Like I say, it is complicated and circumstances vary. Even banks don't like seeing innocent parties suffer and it is orders of magnitude harder to make fraudulent electronic transfers than it is to pass duff cheques. Electronic transfers are a very safe way to accept payment but they are not as safe as cash. I appreciate that, legally, electronic and physical money may be regarded as the same thing but if the world always operated according to the law we wouldn't need lawyers

[morellomax]

Thanks. It's interesting to hear what happens in practice, and you're way ahead of me on that.

Hmmm, I still don't know if I can be bothered to go to the trouble of requiring cash though. How to weigh up the risk vs the effort.....