Australian government grabs money in bank accounts dormant for 3 years

[retrend]

http://moneysaverhq.heraldsun.com.au/news/government-grabs-360-million-from-idle-household-bank-accounts/story-fnkrnsiy-1226950657835

THE federal government has seized a record $360 million from household bank accounts that have been dormant for just three years, prompting outrage in some quarters amid complaints that pensioners and retirees have lost deposits.
Figures from the Australian Security and Investments Commission (ASIC) show almost $360 million was collected from 80,000 inactive accounts in the year to May under new rules introduced by Labor. The new rules lowered the threshold at which the government is allowed to snatch funds from accounts that remain idle from seven years to three years.

The rule change has delivered the government a massive bonanza with the money collected in the year to May more than the total collected in the past five decades combined. Between 1959 and 2012, the total collected was $330 million.


Leaving your money untouched for just three years could see it snatched back by the government. Source: News Limited
While the purpose of the laws is actually to reunite people with lost accounts before funds are eroded by fees and other charges, the lower threshold has been criticised as a budget cash-grab which affected accounts that were neither lost or forgotten.

Australian Bankers' Association chief executive Steven Munchenberg said the legislation was a “rushed” budget-boosting exercise which had transferred money set aside by people for their grandchildren's future to the government's coffers.

“We have grandparents who put money aside for their grandkids' future and farmers who have set aside money for a rainy day, but it was transferred to the government,” Mr Munchenberg told Fairfax Media.

Connie Franze, 68, and her son Vince, 45, told Fairfax Media they were trying to reclaim life savings of more than $12,000 that was taken by the government last June.

Ninety per cent of the accounts seized by the government had balances of less than $5000, although some were worth millions.

Lovely safe fiat.

[Lethn]

I'm going to link this article now every time somebody tells me paper money is safer than Bitcoins

[rramires]

I remembered the episode of Futurama where he discovers that 1.000 years after the pennies left over in savings worth billions.

If it was in Australia he would be robbed!

[johnatan32]

Who thinks it is a safe place to bank, this article just shows that some people who think they are wrong.

[ajas]

I'm going to link this article now every time somebody tells me paper money is safer than Bitcoins

This article is not about paper money. Its about money on a bank account.
Paper money is much safer.

[Malin Keshar]

I'm going to link this article now every time somebody tells me paper money is safer than Bitcoins

This article is not about paper money. Its about money on a bank account.
Paper money is much safer.

Paper money is safer than bank account money, but do not means it is safe. Money can be stolen and damaged(burned, soaked, etc). I remember a notice about someone that saved 60k on cash at home, only to see more than half of that robbed by parents that visited their home. There are some story about saving's confiscations here, so I don't trust my money to be on cash or in bank anymore.

I remembered the episode of Futurama where he discovers that 1.000 years after the pennies left over in savings worth billions.

If it was in Australia he would be robbed!

In real world, billions would be equivalent to pennies in 1000 years. Just see some wild west movies, and the prices of things. A high paid federal judge's salary was about $200 dollars in the 19th's.

But I remember a story about someone that found some 1000's of bitcoins buried in a forgotten wallet. If they have been forgotten in a bank, they would have been robbed for sure.

[beetcoin]

I'm going to link this article now every time somebody tells me paper money is safer than Bitcoins

This article is not about paper money. Its about money on a bank account.
Paper money is much safer.

Paper money is safer than bank account money, but do not means it is safe. Money can be stolen and damaged(burned, soaked, etc). I remember a notice about someone that saved 60k on cash at home, only to see more than half of that robbed by parents that visited their home. There are some story about saving's confiscations here, so I don't trust my money to be on cash or in bank anymore.

I remembered the episode of Futurama where he discovers that 1.000 years after the pennies left over in savings worth billions.

If it was in Australia he would be robbed!

In real world, billions would be equivalent to pennies in 1000 years. Just see some wild west movies, and the prices of things. A high paid federal judge's salary was about $200 dollars in the 19th's.

But I remember a story about someone that found some 1000's of bitcoins buried in a forgotten wallet. If they have been forgotten in a bank, they would have been robbed for sure.

and i've heard plenty of stories of people who lose thousands of bitcoins, because they either threw their hard drive away or formatted it.

[retrend]

You can lose a real wallet with cash in, or details of your unnamed offshore bank account too though.

And the biggest story of a loss, about the guy searching the tip for his hard drive with thousands of btc on is a pretty obvious lie.  Unless the guy threw his hard drive out when it was worth hundreds of thousands of $.

[ljudotina]

This is best PR Bitcoin could get. Really...this is not as shady as printing money...this is pure and simple, shameless, money grab.

[ShakyhandsBTCer]

In the US after bank accounts (or other assets at a financial institution) have been dormant for a certain amount of time the assets are sent to "unclaimed funds" so the bank no longer controls the assets, but the assets are still property of the owner, the owner just needs to claim them.