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In reply to the discussion: Bank error in your favor. Collect $120,000. [View all]customerserviceguy
(25,183 posts)ATM's had just come out, and they first saw use at the two branches of a major bank in the university district where I lived. I transferred $400 from my savings to my checking account, and while $400 did indeed go into the checking account, only $4.00 came out of the savings account. Now, this was not the first screw-up that ever happened with this mega-bank, and I was determined I would get their damned attention.
I withdrew all of my money from that bank, including the mistaken funds, and put it into another bank. I got a letter from the bank, but I was holding out for being able to talk with one of the muckety-mucks higher up than the local branch. I was fully willing to give them their money back, but I would demand a fuck-up free account (meaning, if I found another screw-up, that I would have a telephone number of someone who would fix the problem THAT DAY) and as I was only 20 at the time, I wanted a MasterCharge credit card from this bank (yes, that was before they called it MasterCard). I figured that since I didn't piss the money away, it proved that I was a good credit risk even though I didn't have a lot of credit at that point in my life.
They never pursued it any further, and I kept the money. This was a major regional bank that was bought up by one of the "too big to fail" banks, and is emblematic of their future of doing stupid-ass things, necessitating a Federal bailout when the shit hit the fan back in 2008.