Read this article by Bruce Watson on the Daily Finance and had to pass it along:

http://www.dailyfinance.com/2012/01/19/what-would-you-do-with-a-billion-dollar-bank-error/

Yes, indeed, the story is about one Parijat Saha who found that he had 9.8 BILLION dollars in his bank account and what he did afterwards.

I’ll spoil it a bit for you:  He did the right thing.

However, if you read the rest of the article it presents some other examples of errors in people’s bank accounts and the actions of said people with the…ahem…extra cash they found at their disposal.

I’m rather torn about this.  On the one hand, if you find a huge amount of cash appear in your bank account that you know isn’t yours, it seems stupid to think that you can simply claim it as your own, use it as you please, and assume no one will ever find out.  Particularly when the amount of money that appears in your account may be very, very large.  Someone will eventually figure it out.

On the other hand…you didn’t make the error.  The bank did.  And if they made the error why should you be held…

Ok, Ok, I know.  Fanciful thinking.  It’s not your money to begin with and by using it you are effectively “stealing” what is not yours.

But at 9.8 billion dollars…what a temptation!