A Surprising Bank Bungle

bankonline.jpgI was reading this morning that a Swedish woman was rather surprised at her bank balance when she checked out her account on line recently.

The balance was the equivalent of $1.76 billion higher than she expected.

Cornelia Johansson logged on to her internet bank to pay some bills. I guess you could pay a lot of bills with that kind of money. The amount had supposedly been deposited as a correction for a credit card purchase. The money was still credited to her account the following morning but a few hours later it was gone as mysteriously as it had arrived.

A spokeswoman for Nordea Bank later explained the mystery as “a technical mistake made by a company”.

What would you do if you found that much extra money in your account? Buy a small country? Would you spend wildly and hope that no one noticed? Would you be straight on the phone to your bank to get things sorted out?

I wouldn’t mind if I had $1.76 billion in my account for just one day as long as I got to keep the interest it accrued for the day.

I admit that I do sometimes get surprised when I check my balance online but it’s not because there’s any extra money in my account.



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About the author

Rodney Olsen

Rodney is a husband, father, cyclist, blogger and podcaster from Perth Western Australia.

He has worked in radio at Perth's media ministry Sonshine for over 25 years and has previously worked at ministries such as Compassion Australia and Bible Society.

The views he expresses here are his own.

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1 Comment

  • Truthfully, I would be in shock for a bit, scared as to what it might mean, … and then, if I had my wits about me, hope for exactly your summation “I sure hope I accrued some interest out of all that :)” Just to compensate for the shock;)

    You know, the questions in my mind are … what is happening with money? How do you accidentally allocate that kind of money to the wrong account? Oops! a little error1

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