Lawsuit: The Bank Told Me To Spend That Mysterious $280,276.76 They Put In My Account
A retiree in Altoona, PA says that his bank told him he could spend the $280,276.76 that was mysteriously deposited in his account. He knew it wasn't his, but the bank assured him that everything was in order and he was free to start spending.
From the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review:
His checking account with First Commonwealth Bank showed an Oct. 23 deposit of $280,276.76. The Altoona retiree said he knew the staggering amount of money didn't belong to him, or to his wife, Becky, so he called the bank -- several times -- to report the mistake, his attorney said.
Starbird's attorney said the bank assured his client more than once that everything was in order, that the deposit was accurate, that all was OK with his account. So, Starbird and his wife began to spend their unexpected windfall, thinking that an anonymous benefactor had given them an awesome gift of free money.
Yeah, not quite. Now the bank is suing Herbert Starbird, claiming that he never contacted the bank. By the time the bank noticed the error, Mr. Starbird and his wife had spent $163,330.37. The bank recovered $102,935.48 that remained in Starbird's checking account and took $14,010.91 from his savings account, according to the lawsuit. Starbird's lawyer says that his client has been trying to pay the bank back, but doesn't want to mortgage his house to do it and would like an interest free payment plan. The Tribune-Review says that the lawsuit shows Starbird has made two payments so far: $624.25, and $5,500.
Couple say they began spending after bank's OK [Pittsburgh Tribune-Review] (Thanks, Justin!)
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If this ever happens to me, I'm gonna take all the money out, close my account and move it to an off sure account, pulling interest on it, until the dickheads at the bank figure out what the fuck they did wrong.
Then, if the ask real nice, I may think about giving it back, minus a maintenance fee.
Yeah, unless he does have something in writing I will have to side with the bank on this one...
Maybe it was a stimulus payment from the IRS that got misdirected.
@wgrune: If we was TOLD he could spend the money by the bank, how is this his fault?
He shouldn't have to pay a dime.
too bad he didn't record at least one of the 'several phone calls' they made to the bank.
Why didn't he just open a new savings account...transfer all of that money to it and let it sit for 6 months?
If after 6 months nobody came calling for it then go talk to the bank again and say,ok..is this for real?
If so,get something in writing from the bank.
I'm sure..somebody just plopped $280 thousand into your bank account with no rhyme or reason?
I like finding a $20 on the sidewalk as much as the next guy but in this case,obvioualy a gigantic screwup at the bank and to actually use this money was just careless and greedy.
And to use $163,000! On what? I could see taking a very small amount,something you could pay back over a short time period in the event the bank comes calling for te money..like say $5000 or $10000..just to dip your toe but to go hog wild like that. Unreal.
once upon a time, one of my weekly paychecks was 10,000 over my usual pay. i didn't alert anyone, but i didn't spend it either. about a week later, the money dissapeared. noone at the bank ever called me to tell me about it tho.
He spent $160,000 between October and February?
Uh, yeah, that's going to sound kinda fishy to a jury.
3 pieces of advice for anyone who is unsure about anything:
Get it in writing.
Get it in writing.
Get it in writing.
@TheDude06: Or on tape. Document, Document, Document.
Seriously, why does this stuff NEVER happen to me? I can tell you right now what I would spend money on. The rest would go in a cd or something.
"I thought it was for a reality show called Brewster's Thousands. I kept waiting for Richard Pryor to show up, but I'm secretly glad he never did, what with all his cursing and racism and whatnot."
I hate it when people with no common sense try to play the victim bit.
@ChipMcDougal: Because he still knew it wasn't his money.
The money didn't belong to the guy and he knew it, the bank, if it ever even said "it's your money" (which would seem odd to me, I'd think a bank would take someone saying 'this shitload of money isn't mine' pretty seriously), the bank was wrong.
If you go to a parking garage and an attendant hands you the keys to someone else's car, it doesn't matter how much the guy insists it's your car; it's not your car and you know it. Taking it would be a crime.
That said, the person's who this money really belongs to can probably go after the bank for their mistake.
Well, to be fair, maybe someone screwed up one of those mundane details.
Exactly my point. Was he told that by the bank, or is he just saying he was told by the bank. Before I spent a dime of that money (which he knew wasn't his, which is essentially stealing) I would have had something in writing.
Would you run someone over with your car if a cop told you it was ok?
General rule I guess is to move banks after that so they don't find it within their rights to just take money from you wherever whenever and actually have to take you to court to prove they're entitled to your money they unfortunately don't have direct access to.
@wgrune:Would you run someone over with your car if a cop told you it was ok?
No, but I don't have a lot of ground clearance.
What does it say about the bank that it took them almost 4 months to notice?
@wgrune: Well, I'm operating under the assumption that he's not lying. If he is, then yes, I'd say he owes them
If I found three hundred grand in my bank account I'd run out, buy small digital voice recorder.
I'd put the voice recorder in my pocket, turn it on, and walk in to the bank.
And if they told me to keep it I'd withdraw every penny from all of my accounts and find a credit union or bank or anything where I could go in and lock my money away from 5 years.
And then I'd go back to work and school.
I suppose its retards like this that believe some Nigerian prince is going to deposit large amounts of money into your account for no reason, if only you'd just put up a small deposit. Who really believes 'anonymous donors' put in large wads of cash into your account for no reason?
I can't really feel sorry for these people. I mean just look at this jewel of a quote:
"They said they'd heard about things like that before, on TV."
HUH? So you saw it on TV so it must be true!?! We need to give out Darwin Awards on a preemptive basis for idiots like this.
Jesus, Herbet; wanna buy a bridge? "Anonymous benefactors" don't just drop $260K in to your bank account. At the very least I would have asked the bank to send me a letter telling me it was my money, but even then I probably wouldn't have spent it. I would have moved it to a high-yield savings account or CD, and at least pocket the interest when the bank came collecting.
How have we ended up in a world which doesn't require personal accountability?
How could he think that WOULDN'T come to bite him in the ass?
@satoru: HUH? So you saw it on TV so it must be true!?! We need to give out Darwin Awards on a preemptive basis for idiots like this.
He's a retiree, meaning he's likely to have children and possibly grandchildren. This means he is disqualified for a Darwin Award, since he's deficient genes have already been passed on.
But I like your idea, although we don't want anything to be preemptive since that might prevent death. Anticipatory Darwin Awards, FTW!
This sounds like a story from way back. A guy had a large amount of money appear in his bank account. He contacted the bank, and they said there was no error. He tried multiple times until the bank started being rude.
He closed his account and moved the money somewhere where they couldn't touch it. A few months later, the bank realizes the error and tried to sue him for the money, but the guy won: He could demonstrate that he tried to resolve it in good faith, and the bank took too long (after 30 days) to fix the error.
The guy who won this was even on TV (I think that's how I learned about the story).
I would assume the law that protected the guy has been amended by now, but does anyone else know if there's a time limit banks have to realize and fix errors like this?
there's just no way the bank gave that to him in writing, that it was his money. Just because they said it was ok doesn't mean he's not liable for spending it... after all, it's his own negligence for not proving where the money in fact came from in the first place.
I hope one of those times he talked to the bank, that he got the ok to spend it in writing or at least taped one of the phone calls, because otherwise he's screwed.
Didn't we hear about this a long time ago, or is this a completely new case? Supposedly they mixed up his account with someone much richer, but with the same name.
Don't know what the law says, but it I call several times and am told by the bank that it's my money I'm inclined to believe them.
@MissTic: i'm sure he could bring up phone records to show that he called a few times. the nature of the calls would be questioned though so unless the manager tells the truth, it probably won't help too much.
I thought the bank is required to act within a few weeks to correct mistakes like this.
I once read a long writeup of someone who on a lark, dropped a "you could be getting checks like this" fake check in an ATM and wound up with 93K.
He returned the money, but found out the bank had screwed up by not stopping the transaction within two weeks.
Either way, the bank should make a deal with the couple, e.g. a low (no) interest loan to pay it back.
280K and many months is a big mistake on their part.
If his attorney knows his shit, he's filed a subpoena for all phone conversations under the Discovery Act. By government law, all business phone conversations much be recorded and archived for a two year period. Assuming the bank does not deny that these recorded conversations exist, I'd say that he's legally entitled to it. And if they 'have to recorded conversations' then the bank will face a hefty fine from the government.
Some idiot entered the wrong data when I transferred 11K to pay off my auto loan and after explaining to the bank that there is no way I said 16 different numbers they checked their archives, found me in the right and fixed the issue. Calls are recorded for quality assurance for a reason.
@Geekybiker: Frankly, then you would be acting foolish, especially with a sum that large. That deposit should have SOME sort of record behind it. Random people can't just suddenly decide to deposit money into your account.
Your action should be to figure out where the hell the money came from, and verify with that party that the money was indeed intended to go to you.
Common sense is the rule on something like that. Even if the bank says "nah, by all means, spend away", I think I'd pull the money out and put it someplace else, and let it earn interest while my bank figures it out. That way, when they ask for the money back, I at least have a couple dollars interest for the snafu.
Wonder what they bought with the $160,000 they used?
"Starbird's attorney said the bank assured his client more than once that everything was in order, that the deposit was accurate, that all was OK with his account."
If the guy has a record of making multiple calls to the bank and didn't spend the money until after those same calls maybe he has a point. But methinks there's a fly in the ointment...
Considering that this bank overlooked $280,276.76 for four months, I wonder how many $1000, $2000, and $10,000 errors are still lurking in their books.
Come on people, would you really spend $163,330.37 of money that "mysteriously" showed up in your account?
People are very stupid sometimes.
@bonzombiekitty: "If you go to a parking garage and an attendant hands you the keys to someone else's car, it doesn't matter how much the guy insists it's your car; it's not your car and you know it. Taking it would be a crime."
OK, how about this. Someone comes and drops off a car in your driveway and then hands you the keys and a title. In essence, that's what happened. They put the money in his personal account, and told him time and time again that it was his. They didn't freeze the account, so he had access to it, just like a set of keys. If Publishers Clearing House came to your door with a check and said it's yours, it still is yours.
@Devidence: I would spend 8,000 of it. That's what it will cost to have the two teeth I lost replaced. Let's see em rip the titanium sockets from my jawbone!
@ChipMcDougal: He knew it wasn't his money to spend, but he spent it anyway. Repeat after me: "He knew it wasn't his money to spend, but he spent it anyway"
@Git Em SteveDave: The reason publisher's clearing house can come to your door and hand you a check is because it's THEIR money and part of a contest you entered. People don't just come around giving huge amounts of money unless you entered a contest or something similar. And if some random person dropped off a car unsolicited, you'd be damn sure I'd be checking to make sure that car is actually mine.
The bank does not really own the money, the money belongs to other people - the bank is just managing it for them. It's more like a parking garage (in my analogy) than a driveway. If a bank misdirects your deposit into my account, they have deposited your money in my account. If I know that money isn't mine, I shouldn't be touching it.
People do not randomly deposit huge sums of money into random people's bank accounts.
@graymulligan: If it's the same story as the one not too long ago, he used it to pay off debts or something.
besides subpoena-ing the phone calls which I agree is a must needed first step, they can also request the phone logs from the phone co to show the dates and times the guy called the bank and how long those calls lasted. And I am sure the bank internally logs every time any employee accesses any account and can match up the phone logs to who access his account and the same dates and times. If he really made those calls and was assured by the bank that the $ was on the up and up then he should be able to recover the entire mistaken money and any attorney's fees and costs associated with the bank's error. If he did not make those call and the bans never actually assured him well then I agree with others that he should of known better.
@Git Em SteveDave: What ever happened to a little common sense? It's ideas like "They gave me money that wasn't mine, and said it was okay to spend it.." that allows scammers to collect from people who have no common sense.
@redpeppers20xx and nick_r: "I always wanted to surprise my loved ones with new cars for Christmas. Then they needed new sound systems for Valentines."
@RandoX: Obviously the cop would let you use the official running people over vehicle. Great clearance and non-stick undercoating!
@bonzombiekitty: Also to add to this
The guy showing up in my driveway handing me the keys to a car and a title, is probably going to be telling me why I'm getting a free car (i.e. I won some secret contest, or some mysterious anonymous person that he represents is giving it to me). Then, at least I have some first hand account of why I'm getting this free car.
You're a fool if you'd just blindly accept a random person giving you a car without asking for some sort of explanation from a primary party.
I hope this guy has that agreement in writing.