You check your bank statement and discover that $69,300 was accidentally deposited in your account. What do you do?
- Contact the bank and let them know there was an error?
- Let it sit in your account and see how long it takes them to figure out there was a mistake?
- Immediately go out and buy a new car, pay for a vacation and try to spend it all before anyone notices the error?
Well, if you choose the third option, you could end up facing criminal charges, just like this guy from Trevose, PA. By the time Wells Fargo caught the mistake, he had spent all but about $2,000. He’s being charged with theft and receiving stolen property. Lesson: Don’t get your financial or legal advice from the game of Monopoly.
My older brother had this happen to one of his retirement accounts. He got the statement one Friday afternoon, he still has the statement that shows a balance of $514,000,000. Yup, 514 million dollars. The banks were closed by the time he looked at the statement, so he got to wait the weekend before contacting them. So he still can claim that he was a half-billionaire for a weekend.
Personally, in either case I wouldn’t have spent any of the money, but I might have been tempted let it sit in the account and see how long it took the bank to find their big boo-boo.
5 comments:
And they DO make mistakes. It's important to check up on websites or on receipts when you deposit in person -- because sometimes it's YOUR money going into the wrong account.
A few years ago, back before automatic deposit, I stood in a long line at a big branch of my bank to deposit my paycheck -- with at least 50 other people wanting to get it in before the end of the month after work. The teller was obviously in need of a short break and doing his best, but he messed up big time.
I was half-way out the door when I happened to look at my receipt -- to find that my whole pay check had been deposited into the account of the man who'd been in line before me!
I had to cut back into the line, angering several people, to get to the same teller to get him to fix it right that second.
Not funny at all.
Ever since then, I've refused to step away from the teller until I've read the whole receipt to make sure where my money went. :)
Holy crap, that would have sucked if you hadn't caught it right then and there. Glad you got it fixed.
Good story - and Lisa's right - they DO make mistakes. We've had a recent case here where an Asian immigrant working as a gas station attendant had 10 million deposited in his account. He grabbed a suitcase and his New Zealand girlfriend and fled the country for Hong Kong,that night. Eventually they were extradited and faced charges, but not before they'd spent a big chunk of money!
Yay, you've ditched the word verification!
Yeah, I figured that since I have the comment moderation turned on there's no sense putting everyone through that obnoxious word verification thing. It does mean I have to delete that obnoxious spam (I already got two) but at least it won't be littering my blog.
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