Calling this stealing is fucking stupid. It's not stealing, or you have a warped understanding of what that means. They either accurately or inaccurately gave him money. Why is he obligated to return it????
Mine ->Then his
Well first off I'm going to skip over all the obvious ethical issues, since you seem to angrily be already doing that yourself.
I'm not angry, so you're quite mistaken, and I suggested that calling it stealing because OP has noticed someone else fucked up to his benefit is "fucking stupid." That's because it is fucking stupid. Saying so doesn't make me angry, and I didn't resort to implying you yourself are an idiot as you did with me, so way to stay classy.
Again you're not getting the situation because you say
OP has knowingly taken money that is rightfully not his.
Again you seem to not know what it means to steal.
He holds no entitlement over that money in any legal sense.
It was obviously a clerical error of some sort since most companies aren't in the business of simply paying people for no reason. OP had a contract of employment that stipulates his compensation for an exchange of services quite clearly I'm willing to bet. I'm also willing to bet that nowhere in that contract does it allow for "free money" if a clerical error occurs.
This still does NOT mean OP is required to return the money.
What the company cannot do is garnish wages past the point of OP making less than minimum wage to recover that money. However OP no longer works there and that would be an issue. What CAN be an issue however, is the company taking him to court and suing him. Depending on the costs of this, versus how much money OP was actually overpaid, they may not bother, but this in no way makes it not stealing. OP has stolen the money if he decides to keep it. Both ethically and legally. And with your attitude encouraging him to keep it I can certainly hope you never have children. OP, do yourself a favor and save yourself from the potential headache. You no longer work for them so they have no obligation to keep you happy. They CAN sue you. You wanna take that risk? And do you really feel right stealing? Just let them know. It's not free money. They may simply realize that fixing the error would be more trouble than its worth and just let you keep it. If not, you're right back where you started no worse off. Getting sued will leave you out a ton more. Forget these idiots replying to you.