May 13 2009
Could You Do This?
This is not a story of epic proportions, or a comical relief story. It is a story of an ordinary woman who did the right thing. A feel good story if you will, and the kind of story I need to write about now.
From Bellevue, Washington a woman who was behind on her rent, facing eviction, and as broke as could be, discovers a 250,000 dollar mistake in her bank account, and gives it back to the bank. That’s right she went to the bank ATM to withdraw money and was shocked when she saw the balance in her account. The statement said her balance was 271,366.01 to be exact.
Now the amazing part is that this single mother who was facing eviction for being behind in her rent, gave it back to the bank. She said that it was the right thing to do as a child of God. Sure she admits to mentally having fantasies of spending the money, but she couldn’t do it.
It turns out that the bank made a mistake and issued her a new ATM card for the wrong account. The account actually belonged to an adult correctional facility. She said that when all was said and done at the end of the day, she paid her rent and was 3.00 dollars in the hole. But she felt good about what she had done.
Now the question is…….Could you do that? If you suddenly found yourself in the same position would you give it back? The answer for me would be yes. And I actually did find myself in a similar spot. Last year a business that my husband and I deal with sent us our bill for a purchase we had made, and inside was a check for over 11,00.00. The check it turns out was meant to be sent to a business to pay a bill, but it ended up in our envelope by mistake. We did return the check the next day. And like the lady in this story we felt pretty darned good about it.
I don’t know about you, but at the end of my days I want to know that I did the right thing.
Embedded video from CNN Video
Yes, I would go to the bank and tell them something was wrong… you couldn’t really keep the money anyway. At least I dont think you could… besides I believe in Karma… I dont keep things I find…. I found that someone had left a bunch of shopping bags with merchandise at the atm I took it and left a note there and also contacted the bank in the morning to drop it all off. It was a freak accident a lady got an emergency call while at the bank and rushed off without her shopping bags.
besides our children watch and learn from us we need to do the right thing if we want them too
I think you would have to give it back really, eventually it would be discovered that money was being withdrawn and the card would be traced back to you. More than that though I know I wouldn’t be able to live with it.
The interesting question I suppose is how much would it take for us to report it. If there was just a $10 discrepancy in your bank balance that you noticed would you report that to the bank? What if it was the other way around, i.e. you were overcharged by $10? I think people would be more likely to report the second…
When I was in college, my roommates and I found a lady’s wallet right outside a bank in the parking lot. The lady’s number and identification were inside and we called her. She wanted to meet with us to pick up her wallet and give us a small reward. My friend, being from Los Angeles, was a little bit more paranoid and said, “no, we’ll just mail it.” Her argument was that if anything was missing we might get blamed for it. There was no cash, just credit cards and pictures. So, we followed along and just mailed it. It never crossed our minds not to return it. We pretty much placed ourselves in that person’s position and did the right thing.
Hey, a couple got ten million NZ dollars credit instead of ten thousand a couple of weeks ago in their bank account. They fled to China; the bank has failed to get back over three million dollars so far.
Cheers,
Peter