Suppose you’re a somewhat less-than-ethical person who discovers one day that your bank account is suddenly richer by an absurd amount (let’s say 50 million dollars), due to some sort of computer banking error. I don’t imagine that there’s a legal way of benefiting from this, but how about an illegal way? How could you get away with this error (perhaps by leaving the country and taking advantage of some other country’s lack of an extradition treaty) and end up 50 million dollars richer?
The time it would take you to devise a plan, implement it and have all of the money in hand (small unmarked bills! 
) in some other place where you think you cannot be extradited is far longer than the time for the bank to discover the error and fix it.
Dream all you want. It just won’t happen.
You might think so, but…
New Zealand might have lax banking policies that allow such transfers to occur. I think in the US such an attempted withdrawal would be held up for processing or would otherwise trigger flags with the bank.
Yes, eventually they WILL find the error and take back the money.
There was an interesting story a few years ago of a guy who received a dummy check for, oh, 100 grand in an advertising circular. He looked at the check, and looked at the laws of his state, and determined that the check was in fact technically valid. So, he deposited it, withdrew the amount in cash and put it into a safe-deposit box.
Eventually, the bank came back to him and asked for the money back. He pointed out the law and strung them along for some period of time, posting the correspondence on a web site. He had no intention of keeping the money, but he wanted to see how long it would take to work through the process and how much crap he could give the bank in the meantime.
Eventually, he did open the box and return the money. Very entertaining. I’ll look for the web page.
There are three ways this can end:
- The bank discovers their mistake and takes measures to rectify it.
- The bank notices your behaviour and catches you red-handed.
- You get away with it.
If #1 happens (and it probably will), you don’t want to be caught in the crossfire. You won’t be able to get the money out fast enough to make running worthwhile, so you should not touch this money until you’re sure they aren’t going to find it on their own and find some missing. You still might be able to make some money legitimately from the spectacle of the error, but if you’re trying to get the whole lot that should obviously be your plan B. I’d wait a year before even trying to move the money.
Here’s the link to the dummy check story: Subscribe to read | Financial Times
I find this fascinating. Forget the obvious moral or common sense position for just a moment. We all know it’s just a marketing gimmick with no intention of giving this money away via check. But why ***should ***he have to pay back this money to the bank?
If indeed the check was a legally valid instrument, why is the onus on the recipient rather than the writer? I understand the bank paid the recipient, but why not go after the marketing company that wrote a bad check? Furthermore, it’s a crime to write a check knowing there are insufficient funds to cover it. Why wasn’t this company prosecuted?
I understand the bank’s lack of humor on this, but really, it’s their rules he’s following.
If federal law is true:
***In the United States, when a bank receives notice that a cheque paid into your account has bounced, it has 24 hours to notify you and, if it fails to do this, you are safe to spend the money. ***
then what’s the problem? The bank fucked up.
One of you banker-types tell us why the bank should put ol’ Pat on the rack instead of the sender of the check. Don’t tell us the right thing to do, or about unintended consequences. Just point to the law that says this is Pat’s problem, not the bank’s.
Buy another house on Boardwalk, of course.
What do you mean “suppose”? 
And the correct response is to rock back on your heels and grab your head "bank error" card monopoly game - Bing images
I was the beneficiary of one of these bank errors years ago. Someone keyed my account number into the field where they should have entered the deposit amount. And suddenly, on paper, my account was several tens of millions richer.
I pointed out the error to the bank and they were not graceful about it. The bank manager began to accuse me of some imagined misdeed.
Lesson learned. Take the money out and then point out their error.
Imagine this man:
PayPal accidentally credits man $92 quadrillion
Maybe they should have let him keep it, because when asked what he would have done with it, he said: “I probably would have paid down the national debt.”
Great story. Just to be pedantic, he received the money in a cashier’s check. A bank wouldn’t have that much hard cash on hand.
As it is, had he wanted to try to steal the money, I wonder if he could have deposited the cashier’s check into another bank, and if that would have cleared.
I was working from memory, here. Yes, it was a cashier’s check.
Originally, the entire story from beginning to end, with all of the correspondence, pictures of the check, the final letter of apology, etc., were online. Now, it is just a summary, basically an ad for his one-man show based on this event. A bit of a pity, but more power to him - he’ll make more off of the story than he gave back to the bank.
Looks to me like there’s a minus sign in front of that balance. The man owed $92 quadrillion.
Damn deadbeat.
I saw the minus sign too, but everyone is reporting it was a credit, so I don’t know what to think. I’d definitely be negotiating terms if I had to pay that much.
I was going to say take a ride on the Reading Railroad, but yours works, too.
92 quadrillion dollars
3 billion dollars every second for a year 
Several years ago my bank credited my account by about $250 with no explanation. I kept checking the balance for months to see when they realized the error but there was never a debit. I’ve been meaning to give them a call and report their error but it keeps slipping my mind. To justify this, I’ve simply concluded the bank must think I deserve this because I’m a nice guy. Works for me.
When I was in the process of paying off my mortgage, CHASE screwed some things up, forcing me to go through some work to fix things. I was pissed off and vocal about it, tying up phone people’s time, etc.
They overnighted a check ($50, IIRC) to cover my time, along with an apology letter. Only I received the same overnight package repeatedly, on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Had they continued to arrive I would have called and asked what was up, but there was only $100 overpayment and it was never caught, I guess.
I am wondering…let’s say you have that nice healthy checking account showing $50 million and then, even at the same bank, ask to take out a loan for say, “only” $25 million.
Perhaps you tell them you are thinking of investing in a large corporate building or whatever.
Have that loan in a separate account.
If, a few weeks/months later, the original $50 million is then sucked out of your account, you would still have the $25 million in your new account. Use some of that money to pay back the interest and live quite nicely…of course, when you die there will be quite a balance to pay, but you will be dead and, so what? Or perhaps really buy some apartment complex that might bring in enough money to really pay off the loan over time?