Woman Returns $380 Bank ATM Spat Out Of Deposit Slot Instead Of Pocketing It
When there’s free money involved, there’s always going to be the temptation to take it, even if you know it’s not right. But yet another good consumer has done an honorable deed, this time by returning almost $400 that unexpectedly shot out of a drive-thru bank ATM.
A Pennsylvania woman said she pulled into a Wells Fargo drive-thru ATM on Sunday morning to withdraw $60 from her bank account, the Delaware County Daily Times reports. As her request was processing, she heard two slots open instead of just the one dispensing her cash: the deposit slot started popping out $20 bills and just kept going for about 30 seconds, emitting a total of $380.
She checked her account balance immediately and realized it wasn’t her money that had been ejected from the machine.
“I panicked,” she told the Times. “It was like something out of a movie.”
She recalled a red pickup truck being in line in front of her, and chased it down as it was pulling out of a nearby parking lot. The driver said it wasn’t his deposit either, but jokingly offered to take it off her hands.
Instead, with the bank branch closed, she called Wells Fargo for advice. The bank told her to return the money to the location the next day, which she did.
“Somebody deposited that money. It could have been their paycheck,” she told the Times. “I’m a single mother of two, $380 to me is a lot. I was concerned about the person who is losing it.”
The bank told her the money will go back into its fund, she says, but she’s hoping the rightful owner will turn up eventually.
Wells Fargo confirmed a “malfunction” at that ATM, and a corporate spokesman said the company was “grateful to the individual who brought that to our attention and returned excess funds.”
The honest customer has now earned the status of, “You’re Not A Horrible Person,” along with the following subjects of previous Consumerist stories:
• The Domino’s customer who got free pizza for a year for returning $5,000 she found in her chicken wings box.
• The woman who found $1,000 at a bank drive-thru and didn’t give into temptation.
• The person who turned in a lost diamond ring at Newark Airport
• The homeless guy who turned in a backpack containing $42K.
• The California man who found $6,900 at the DMV and returned it to the rightful owner.
• And one of the two men who found $1,000 outside a Schnucks store in Missouri.
Woman does the right thing after ‘gift’ from ATM [Delaware County Daily Times]
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