What is a 'Dormant' Bank Account and why are the Brits Confiscating them?

[AuH20]

simply astonishing.


http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-07-18/cameron-raids-dormant-u-k-accounts-while-minister-attacks-rip-off-banks.html

[Seraphim]

simply astonishing.


http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-07-18/cameron-raids-dormant-u-k-accounts-while-minister-attacks-rip-off-banks.html

Something is fishy with that. Essestially confiscating money from "dormant" accounts while saying all the right things about needing more competition so people keep most of their money and don't get fleeced. lol...

[amonasro]

Amazing. I like how they plan to steal peoples' money, then set up a centralized bank to doll it back out and have the gall to call it "charity".

[Zippyjuan]

Dormant accounts are basically abandoned orphans. Sometimes a person may die and nobody knows the person had an account. According to the article:


An account is dormant if the holder has made no transactions over a period of 15 years.

In the US, states may claim them:
http://www.bankrate.com/brm/news/bank/20010207a.asp

[Agorism]

It still would fall to someone's distant relatives eventually once it is realized.

The government should not steal those.

[Zippyjuan]

Not sure how it works in the UK but here the state becomes "custodian" and the money can still be claimed if somebody can track it down.

[Anti Federalist]

Not sure how it works in the UK but here the state becomes "custodian" and the money can still be claimed if somebody can track it down.

That's the "reclaim lost money" ads from a few years back.

Somebody put all these dead accounts into a dbase and charged a fee for you to search it and find out if you were due any of this money from closed or dead or inactive accounts.