That’s Not My $10,000

It’s a familiar day dream that we’ve probably all had at one time or another. Free money. You go to the ATM and it shoots $20 dollar bills at you. Or the bank makes and error and adds a zero or two to your account balance. Fun thoughts. But what if it really happened?


2000

I’m not overzealous with daily or even weekly balance checks on our investment and retirement accounts. Quarterly, that’s the typical frequency I’ll tune in for a review plus a once per year overhaul, as needed. But this particular evening I logged in, out of schedule, and discovered an irregularity. An irregularity in my favor. $10,000 in my favor!

I immediately logged off and walked away from the computer. Could I just leave it there, pretend I knew nothing, benefit from someone’s error and keep it? Could they track the error back to me and reclaim the money at some future date? Would another customer actually be out the $10,000? Or would the financial institution cover the error? Those were questions I would never have answered. A guilty conscience got the better of me. Ten minutes passed and I logged back into the account online and called a customer service representative.

I advised the phone representative of the error. After a short review, he countered by advising me that the error was mine, the $10,000 belonged in my account, and could he do anything else to help. I was then in the amusing situation of asking to speak with someone else to insist that the errant $10,000 be removed from my account. This time, the message was heard and my request was followed through with a thanks. My good samaritan phone call was rewarded by being credited a free trade next time I bought or sold stock. I accepted the token of thanks, street value about $15.


My day dream henceforth changed. No longer ‘What if my account is credited erroneously,’ but rather ‘What if I found a large paper bag of dollar bills?’ Heck, that’d be cool! No electronic tracking, just a guilt-free sack of money. Hot dog! That’d be fun!
-klem