Ruth Balloon was shocked when £31 million was deposired into her account by mistake has revealed what she wanted to spend it on.
Ruth Balloon, 35, from Dallas, US, checked her bank balance only to find that she had an extra $37 million (£31 million) at her disposal.
The mother of two expressed her disbelief at the staggering sum, saying, “Wow, we have a lot of money!”
The $37 million was “truly gifted to us,” according to Ruth, but she knew it was too good to be true.
The first thing Ruth did was take a deep breath before calling her husband to let him know, according to CBS News.
When Brian, age 39, called the bank about the transaction, he immediately believed it to be a fraud.
He eventually connected with LegacyTexas, who informed the couple that they had millions because a teller had accidentally entered an account number as the amount of money being deposited rather than the actual amount.
Ruth reported that they were informed that there had been a clerical error and that the money had been refunded after an apology.
Even though the millions were only available for a day and a half, Ruth had enough time to “daydream” about what to do with the money.
She said: “First I was going to do 10% tithing. Then I was going to donate some money and then I would have invested in real estate.
“Even if the amount was a real transfer, I knew the money did not belong to us. I could not spend money that does not belong to us.
“I did daydream of what would I do with it if I did have it.”
“I was a millionaire, I have a screen shot of it so I can say that now, it’s quite a story!” Ruth said.
The bank should give her some sort of award, she added, adding that there was no way she was going to keep the money.
“A ‘thank you’ reward would be a little bit good. Just for being a good customer and notifying them as soon as possible,” she said.
According to the bank, even if Balloon had missed the problem, it would have eventually been discovered and fixed.
“On Tuesday, December 10, our client made a foreign currency deposit into her LegacyTexas account,” the LegacyTexas bank said in a statement.
“Although our client brought the error to our attention and the transaction was immediately reversed, less the amount of her original deposit, it would have been caught and corrected during our evening processing.
“Rest assured, our systems are sound, and this manual entry error has been addressed. “
