Bank insists that man has millions in his account.

[GA Russell]

What would you do?

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,331536,00.html

<h1 class="head">Man Arrested After N.Y. Bank Lets Him Withdraw Millions</h1> Wednesday, February 20, 2008

NEW YORK — A man was charged with withdrawing $2 million from an account after a bank confused him with a man who has the same name.

Benjamin Lovell was arraigned Tuesday on grand larceny charges. The 48-year-old salesman said he tried to tell officials at Commerce Bank in December that he did not have a $5 million account. He says he was told it was his and he could withdraw the money.

Prosecutors said the bank — which advertises itself as America's Most Convenient Bank — confused Lovell with a Benjamin Lovell who works for a property management company.

The lesser-funded Lovell gave away some of the withdrawn money and blew some of it on gifts, but lost much of it on bad investments, prosecutors said.

The district attorney's office did not immediately have information on his lawyer. Calls left with Commerce Bank on Wednesday were not immediately returned.

[jesus marion joseph]

I represented a woman in exactly the same situation, although the amount involved was about $25,000, not millions. She questioned the bank manager's assertion that she had $25K in her account. They told her it was hers, so she spent it, then she was charged with felony larceny. She got pre-trial probation and had to sign a promissory note with the bank, but they've made no move to collect the money from her.

[Christiern]

WELCOME TO THE BIG O,

JESUS MARION JOSEPH

Great to see you again,

please stick around!

[clifford_thornton]

"It's your money, you earned it."

[Jazzmoose]

I represented a woman in exactly the same situation, although the amount involved was about $25,000, not millions. She questioned the bank manager's assertion that she had $25K in her account. They told her it was hers, so she spent it, then she was charged with felony larceny. She got pre-trial probation and had to sign a promissory note with the bank, but they've made no move to collect the money from her.

It's odd to see that name with the label "newbie" next to it...

Welcome!

[Tom Storer]

Jesus, Mary and Joseph! It's jesus marion joseph!

I had a friend who received a hunk of money mysteriously in her account. She bought a motor scooter with it, and then went to the bank and said "Where did this money come from? I wasn't expecting it." They looked into it and said, "Oh, sorry, a mistake. It should have gone to this other account." But by then she had spent it! She had to come up with it then, of course. She felt she had somehow been ripped off by the bank. When I pointed out that it was the intended recipient who would have been out of pocket if she had kept it and said nothing, she got mad at me.

[clifford_thornton]

It's the bank's fault, and the bank should have to come up with it.

They're fucking killing with profits and these mistakes aren't all that common, so the banks need to pony up.

So what if investment bankers' salaries are smaller because the corporate bank fucked up and misplaced $25,000?

[porcy62]

What would you do?

A part drink margaritas and smoking habanos at Grand Cayman, dou you mean?

[ejp626]

It's the bank's fault, and the bank should have to come up with it.

They're fucking killing with profits and these mistakes aren't all that common, so the banks need to pony up.

So what if investment bankers' salaries are smaller because the corporate bank fucked up and misplaced $25,000?

I had a slightly different situation where the bank had clearly f'ed up and allowed a forged check for $2500 get paid. This was after I warned them that checks had been stolen and I was closing that account. (Curiously neither they nor the police had any interest in following up when they had a clear trail that the payee had received stolen funds. Go figure.) So they credited my account, but then the way they reported it made it look like income to the IRS, so I had a phone call or two to clear up that situation. It's their fault but somehow it's always your problem. Grrr.

[Jim Alfredson]

It's the bank's fault, and the bank should have to come up with it.

They're fucking killing with profits and these mistakes aren't all that common, so the banks need to pony up.

So what if investment bankers' salaries are smaller because the corporate bank fucked up and misplaced $25,000?

It's the bank's fault? All of a sudden you have $5 million in your account and you don't stop and think, "Hey, this must be a mistake!" Even if it was just $25,000, I'd know that the money obviously wasn't mine, despite what the bank manager said. How about a little personal responsability?

Oh, and thanks for the welcome wagon, Christiern. Why do I sometimes feel like I'm watching over a bunch of teenagers?

[Dan Gould]

This reminds me of an episode of Frasier in which Martin gets too much money out of the ATM and has a helluva time trying to return the cash to the bank. Ultimately he ends up with a big check as "apology" for their "mistake" and then Daphne asks if she can sign up for an account.

[Claude]

Seems that this is not so rare.

In Luxembourg, there recently was a lawsuit between a bank and a customer. The customer had noticed, while withdrawing money at the cash dispenser, that there was way too much money on his account. So he decided to withdraw as much as possible, thinking the bank would not notice the error. Of course they did and they reclaimed the money, but the customer had already spent most of it.

[jesus marion joseph]

Thanks for the welcome, everybody! I've been an occasional "lurker" for a while.

With regards to the woman I represented, the bank had to play CYA because they had inadvertently given my client all of the account information linked to the other customer with the same name shortly before the error was noticed by the person who actually owned the money. They promptly credited the correct person's account, making them whole again. Not sure what they did about the account info, though.

At any rate, once it became clear to the District Attorney that Bank of America had already written this debt off, and it was really a drop in the bucket for them, they lost interest in attempting to persuade a jury that my client "must have known" the money wasn't hers, even though she questioned it. The judge was slightly horrified because he used the same bank. He might not anymore, though!

BTW, my client was an extemely nice, hard working Jamiacan woman, who cleans motel rooms for a living, and had no criminal record of any sort. When I was first appointed to her I went to the lockup at the courthouse and there was this petite, well-dressed, scared woman huddled in the corner of a dingy cell. I think a jury would have "liked" her if it came down to a trial. Her main concern was that her work visa not be taken away by immigration authorities, frankly, once she realized she probably wasn't going to jail. Apparently it's not so easy to make a living in Jamaica.

Anyway, these types of mistakes by banks are apparently not so uncommon, given the large number of transactions they handle on any given day.

[clifford_thornton]

Bank of America are my bank, and they're a pain in the ass.