[appleiigs]

I work in finance and if I did that, getting fired and prosecuted is totally expected. I would also expect that my reputation would be tarnished and my coworkers would mock me for my stupidity. I would have troubles getting hired in the industry again (even without prosecution). I say this without exaggeration.

I'm completely surprised that 16 people tried to get away with it!

[lovich]

Well when I give money to a company accidentally it is immediately in their coffers and being used, and takes weeks/months/years to return depending on the company and amount, with no punishment for the company.

Why would an employee expect different treatment if they believe the laws are just?

[Traster]

Are you a company? I mean come on, let's be realistic. If you accidentally pay a company money and ask for it back it goes through a reasonable process to assess your request. You probably start by going to customer service, CS then refers it to finance, finance has to identify the transaction, check that it's a genuine mistake, has to account for that in their systems, authorize a refund, and pay the money. Each step in that probably involves a different person. So yes, it takes time. If a company pays you money you go through the same process. The difference is that because you're not operating on a large scale all of those steps can be done by you, very quickly. If you were receiving tens of thousands of payments per day, all from different people for different reasons then we'd expect you to take the same amount of time to refund. It's not that companies are necessarily treated differently, it's that they're treated in a way that is equal, but not the same.

[speedplane]

> Why would an employee expect different treatment if they believe the laws are just?

Because they don't know the law, and they think they're brilliant and the first person to come up with such a scheme.