I just gave away $16K

[Eden]

I had something similar happen with a smaller amount. I had an account that I wanted to close. It has a small sum left in it - like $150 or something. What I decided to do with it was donate the remainder to public TV. I called and did it as a debit transaction. So several months passed and the money never came out of my account. I called the bank and told them. Nothing we can do about - there haven't been any complaints. I called the TV station and told them about it - We got our money we're happy. Called the bank again - nothing wrong here don't worry about it! I think I left the money there about a year and finally took it out and re-donated it. I was a little scared to do it though. Once before, right after I graduated from college and moved out here I closed a bank account. I took all the money out and closed the account to move. A month or so later the school (I worked there) found that they had made some sort of accounting error and had overpaid everyone a small amount - like $60 or something. The bank reopened my account and put it into debit!!! I hadn't left any forwarding addess because I closed the account, so the bank was sending me these overdrawn notices to me at my old address and racking up fines for being overdrawn. Boy was I p*ssed when I finally found out. The bank and I had a long chit chat and they finally took the fines off and all I had to repay them was the original amount, but I was really distressed to find out that they could re-open a closed account without my permission.

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

Bluetree, the only part of this story that nags at me is where the supervisor you finally spoke to told you they would "remove" the money from your account and not to worry about it anymore. How do you know this person didn't just see a great opportunity to "remove" $16.000 from a bank client's account without having it be missed or questioned by anyone else? Maybe they "helped" you by taking the money out and putting it in their OWN private account instead??
If I were you I would insist on speaking to the Pres. or the vice Pres. of the bank and making sure that the money went someplace it was supposed to go.

[Bluetree]

Yowie,
I just heard from my best friend, an attorney, and she mentioned cases of people suing over "unjust enrichment," involving banks and financial institutions that make errors in money transfers. I better make copies and send out my letters certified so it doesn't come back to bite me in the butt.

Sorry CWR, you'll be seeing your money again soon!

[Mr. Bloom]

Kudos to YOU! Right is right, whether appreciated or not!

We had the same thing happen a few years ago with similar response...I think the lack of response was as much having someone on the other end of the line that was STUNNED BY BLATANT HONESTLY.

Personally, I'm not surprised that you did the right thing.

[Fredwina]

Yowie,
I just heard from my best friend, an attorney, and she mentioned cases of people suing over "unjust enrichment," involving banks and financial institutions that make errors in money transfers. I better make copies and send out my letters certified so it doesn't come back to bite me in the butt.

I was thinking about that at work, In my previous job, I was in charge of a computer program that printed legal forms for a child support system.
One of the Forms was the overpayment form. It basically said "Hi! we paid you too much money! now give it back, or we'll send Guido out to breaka youse arms."

[roadfix]

You did the right thing. I applaud you for that. But I, on the other hand, for the type of person I am, would have kept the credit.

[Running Mommy]

Oh you absolutely did the right thing! They would have found it at some point.
Last year we (me, hubby, 9 yr old son) were sitting in the window of a cafe at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. My son suddenly said "MOM, THAT LADY JUST DROPPED 5.00". So I asked him if he could see the lady. He said yes that she was in line. So I told him to go grab it and give it to her. He did, and she was so impressed with his honesty that she gave it to him. She even came over to us and congratulated us on such a "fabulous, honest young man". She was an older lady and she said " I hope you don't take offense to this. But it gives me faith in young parents again. It just seems that I see a lot of HORRIBLE parenting these days." Yep ma'am, there is a lot out there. But there are also just as many GOOD parents, so have faith...