This is really just awful advise. Are you speaking as some kind of attorney with experience with such things? Having worked a bank for a very long time, I'd say if she followed your suggestions she'd be asking for big, big trouble.
Moving the money will immediately cast enough suspicion on her to trigger a full blown investigation that would almost certainly involve law enforcement. Your not only suggesting she move the money to an interest bearing account, your are arguing she she take money that isn't really hers from one institution to another. Instead of just a simple account correction, this would open the door to bank security immediately believing she was running some kind of scam.
Yes, if she had records of reporting the error and could produce the money on demand she might escape too much trouble, but why go through all that and risk the bank and FBI assuming the worst and trying to prosecute her for fraud? It's not her money, she has no right to it and it is wrong to keep it in the first place.
None of you guys have to worry about her trying to keep the money or playing tricks with the money to score a couple of bucks off the interest. She knows that the money isn’t hers and she’s just afraid of getting into trouble. She’s also afraid of her account being messed up and blocking the use of the the money that actually is hers.
Tomorrow I’m having her take out the money that *is* hers to keep it safe in case they freeze her accounts. Tuesday she’ll start nagging the bank and her company to get it fixed. Until it’s sorted, she’ll use cash.
If it’s not fixed within the next two weeks, I’ll have her open another checking acct for personal use until this matter is settled and she can let them figure it out at their leisure.
They always figure it out. I’m well aware.
By talking about it to them multiple times she’s covered in case of an investigation. Actually in many ways she WANTS an investigation, then they’ll find the error, and she can give the money back and the whole incident gets to end. The main reason to move it is to separate it logistically, this is her usage account, she does her normal banking out of there. Leaving the money in there is asking for confusion. And since the law says the bank has years to find their error might as well move it someplace that draws interest, get a little benefit from this massive inconvenience.