Woman Finds $10 Billion in Checking Account

AP ^ | 10/23/02

[11th Earl of Mar]

By Associated Press

October 23, 2002, 11:33 AM EDT

STOCKHOLM, Sweden --

When Gun-Britt Marklund checked her bank account to see whether her monthly child allowance check had arrived from the Swedish government, she knew that what she saw was too good to be true.

Her account showed a balance of more than 93 billion kronor (US$10 billion) on Sunday.

"You never see amounts like this," said the 40-year-old teacher and mother of three children, ages 10, 13 and 15. "I thought this money doesn't belong to me. Something must be wrong."

Marklund's hunch was correct. On Monday, she informed her bank of the inflated child allowance payment -- twice the size of Sweden's defense budget -- and the bank acted swiftly.

An employee had punched in a few too many zeros when funneling payments from the social insurance office into Marklund's account, ICA Bank spokesman Bo Lagergren said.

The transaction was canceled and gone were the 93 billion kronor along with 15 million kronor (US$1.6 million) of interest accrued over the three days before the error was detected.

Lagergren said the bank had sent Marklund a bouquet of flowers along with apologies.

"We hope she'll be happy with that," Lagergren said. "But it's of course very difficult to find compensation on this level."

Marklund, who lives in Haernoesand, 350 kilometers (220 miles) north of the Swedish capital, Stockholm, said her child allowance is normally 3,000 kronor (US$322) a month.

Copyright © 2002, The Associated Press

[ReadMyMind]

With computers, almost anything is possible. Most money is just a set of bits in a computer (under a mountain in Switzerland?). Any decent programmer could make money from nothing (but he still can't get his chicks for free...;-).

[agrace]

That was GREAT! Took me about an hour, between kids and house stuff, but well worth it, thank you for the link!

[Geezerette]

What is this? She's a teacher and still collects welfare??? I didn't read anything about a father, either. Family life in Sweden?

g

[Grut]

Sweden has a defense budget?

Oddly enough, Sweden has always had a world-class air force as regards both equipment (mostly by SAAB) and numbers; when Sweden was planning air force buys in the sixties, for instance, they originally planned to buy 800+ Viggens, even though they eventually settled for only(!) 329.

[Theophilus]

In Socialist European countries, they have to pay people to have kids because the birth rate is so low. Many ethnicities are facing extinction because they are so morally bankrupt and while the governments believe themselves to be God(s), they have not determined how to beget children.

[Tallguy]

Marklund's hunch was correct. On Monday, she informed her bank of the inflated child allowance payment -- twice the size of Sweden's defense budget -- and the bank acted swiftly.

An employee had punched in a few too many zeros when funneling payments from the social insurance office into Marklund's account, ICA Bank spokesman Bo Lagergren said.

The Swedish DOD couldn't 'cover' the check, but it's no-problemo for their welfare department! Talk about your screwed-up priorities.

[1_American]

So THAT'S where I put it. I've been looking all over for it

[xm177e2]

At 5% interest, 1M gives you 50K a year. So 10B would be 10,000 times that, or 500,000M a year.

Divide that by 500 days in a year (I'm lazy), and you've got 1,000M a day. At 25 hours in a day (I'm lazy), that's 40M an hour. That's more than $600,000 a minute, which is $10,000 every second.

[Erasmus]

The funny thing is, the bill has a picture of Al Gore (with beard) on it--I am NOT making this up!

I thought he was on the three.

[Erasmus]

Sweden has a defense budget? Since when does a socialist paradise need defense?

Sure they have a defense budget. It runs on Abba's royalties.

[Erasmus]

Any decent programmer could make money from nothing (but he still can't get his chicks for free...;-).

Easy two-step program.

1. Make money from nothing.
2. Turn money into chicks.

[Clintons Are White Trash]

We had a local retired TV news reporter go to federal prison for spending a balance in her account that didn't belong to her. She got a mistaken deposit of about a million and didn't speak up - started spending and when they caught up with it she was in trouble.

[Capt. Tom]

We had a local retired TV news reporter go to federal prison for spending a balance in her account that didn't belong to her. She got a mistaken deposit of about a million and didn't speak up - started spending and when they caught up with it she was in trouble.

I knew a person years ago whose wife was let go and got a two weeks severence pay of about a thousand dollars. The company made a mistake and sent a check for $10,000.

They cashed the check, and when the company found out about the mistake the company asked for the money back above what she was entitled to.

'They refused to give the money back and it went to court years later.

The final decision was they had to pay back $2,800 out of the $9,000 they owed the company.

[ladyinred]

Scary, I thought the same thing for a moment!
Think we have sniper overload or what? I know I do.

[TheRedSoxWinThePennant]

i would tell my bank only after I got me one of these

[Eternal_Bear]

Hey Moose can't you get anything right? The sniper said 10 million not 10 billion. Sheesh!

[Flashman_at_the_charge]

That was a long read, but worth it. :-)

[teeman8r]

she should of waited and seen how long they would have let it go... plead ignorance until caught... then transfer a large sum to an offshore account and move...

[Mulder]

Her account showed a balance of more than 93 billion kronor (US$10 billion) on Sunday.

Take the money and get the hell out of that worthless socialist state ASAP.