Bank Error in Your Favor

A couple of months ago, a bank error was made in my favor. In Monopoly, that earns you $200. In my case, however, it was to the tune of nearly $30,000.

That’s right, according to my bank statement, I was suddenly quite wealthy. I’ve never noticed a bank error for even $3, so this windfall of $30,000 was quite remarkable. Sort of.

Immediately, it was obvious from where the money came. I had just purchased a car and not-so-coincidentally the amount of money that appeared in my savings account was exactly twice what I paid for my car. With this fact in mind, it seemed apparent that instead of taking out the money I had written a cashier’s check for, the bank had added that amount to my account, meaning not only had they not taken cash, but they gave me the price of a car as a bonus. Plus, I legally owned a car. Oddly enough, totaling my vehicle might have been the most profitable thing I’ve done in my life.

I knew the money wasn’t mine, but I liked looking at it, pretending it were mine. There’s nothing like a thirty grand jump in your account to make you feel good about life, especially when you’ll be unemployed in a matter of months.

I went to my bank to try to clear up the matter. First, I asked to verify whether the amount in my account was accurate. The teller assured me that it was. Then I asked if ey could tell me how the most recent deposit was made. According to the teller, the computers were down, so that kind of information wasn’t accessible. From there, I tried to explain that I thought there was a mistake and that there was $30,000 more in my account than there should be. The teller told me that it couldn’t be a mistake and not to worry about it, but that I could check back another time when the computer system was operating.

Evidently, banks don’t make mistakes – they’re perfect. You’d think if someone attempted to give $30,000 back to the bank, they’d want to hear me out rather than letting me walk out the door, but you’d think incorrectly.

I spoke to my dad about the situation and he encouraged me to not do anything about it for a while. He was afraid that if I were to report the mistake and someone else was to catch the mistake independently, they would try to take the money out from me twice over and it would be far more difficult to retrieve my rightful money back. Not wanting to live out that horror story, I agreed that the best move was to sit and wait for a month to see if the bank would catch it.

That’s when I began to research the matter. While I didn’t think in good conscience I could keep the money, I was curious about my legal standing in this issue. You know, in case my conscience was to someday change. I literally spent hours investigating the matter. Though bank errors in a patron’s favor are far less common than bank errors in the bank’s favor, they do occur.

Here’s an example of how the government protects corporations better than its citizens: If the bank commits an error against you, you typically have 60 days to report it or there’s no longer anything you can do about it. Meanwhile, if the bank makes an error that hurts itself, however, there is no limit on when they can reclaim the misappropriated funds. In other words, ten years from now, if they recognize they make a mistake, they legally have the right to reclaim that money.

Also, it tends to be most banks’ policy to not admit to making mistakes. I read accounts of many people who were told upfront that the bank had not made a mistake, only to see the amount disappear from their accounts weeks later without warning, often resulting in over-drafting and garnering fines.

Precedence in these types of cases shows that it generally ends poorly for people who have been accidentally gifted additional funds in their accounts. Withdrawing or even moving that money to another account is considered a fraudulent action on the part of the account holder, subject to fines and threats of prison time. I found a case of someone who let the money sit for five years before finally deciding it was safe to use it only to prosecuted shortly thereafter.

The laws protect the corporations who have all sorts of procedures in place where they can cheat you of your money, but it doesn’t go both ways. I realized that in actuality, I was at risk for criminal action for a mistake I didn’t make that I even attempted to report. Though I could possibly get away with leaving that money untouched in my account for years to come, it would never be safe for me to actually spend it.

This past week, my dad took charge by calling the bank and speaking to increasingly higher employees until the matter was dealt with. Though I imagine the bank will still not say they made a mistake, it did ultimately find reason to remove the magical $30,000 from my account.

Part of me is relieved to have an ongoing source of stress removed from my life, while the other part misses my hypothetical 30 grand and wishes I could have found another solution. I’d definitely have played it differently if I had a Get Out of Jail Free card.