All it took for a stranger to plunk down $20,000 at a Florida Walmart was overhearing a customer saying she’d have to cancel her layaway purchases. The so-called “layaway angel” was at the store buying bikes for a charity event and decided right then to extend his generosity.

Instead of about 80 customers having to pay down their own layaway balances, the man donated $20,000 toward taking some of the sting out of those purchases.

From what the Orlando Sentinel says, it sounds like it was an emotional, albeit somewhat confusing scene, with one woman asking if the man was actually Ashton Kutcher because she felt like she was on Punk’d.

There were “tears rolling down all of our eyes,” said an assistant manager at the store. “A lot of these people were going to have to cancel their layaways. All week long we’ve been running across people [saying] ‘I really wanted to give this to my kids, but I can’t afford it.’ ”

The man paid off the entire accounts of about six customers, and paid half the balances for anyone with accounts of $200 or more.

“My wife and I don’t want for a bunch of things and we know a lot of people do. I have a lot of people who work for me who are single moms,” the man explained. “It just hit me the right way at the right time. It was just a special thing to be able to do it.”

While we’ve heard of layaway angels in the past, a donation of this amount isn’t even close to the usual amount.

“It’s extremely rare” to get such a hefty amount, a Walmart spokeswoman said.

‘Layaway angel’ pays $20,000 worth of bills at Villages Walmart [Orlando Sentinel]

Want more consumer news? Visit our parent organization, Consumer Reports, for the latest on scams, recalls, and other consumer issues.