Teen charged in bank mistake: who should pay?

An 18 year old Georgia man named Steven Fields had $30,000 deposited into his bank account. It was a mistake from a bank teller who meant to deposit the money into the account of…Steven Fields, another man in the same small town with the same name.

What’s interesting to me about this story is that I read comments on various articles and how many people justify what he did: “it was the bank’s fault, they should have to eat the loss.”

I’ve seen people argue, “C’mon, if you had thousands of dollars show up in your bank account, you would spend it too.”

Actually, no I wouldn’t. Because it is illegal and I’m smart enough to know the bank is going to figure out the mistake at some point and they’re going to want the money back BECAUSE IT ISN’T MINE!

It’s stealing. And stealing is wrong. Money mistakenly being put into your account might not seem like stealing, but it’s something that belongs to someone else that is in your possession and if you then turn around and use the money for yourself, and you don’t make effort to see that the money goes back to its rightful owner, what do you call it?

If money is mistakenly put into your account, you don’t have a right to it. It’s not yours. Someone makes a mistake with someone else’ money and dumps it into your account. You didn’t earn it, you didn’t work for it. What good reason is there as to why it should be yours?

Bank tellers are people. Mistakes happen. You have two guys with the same name and she made a mistake. Why should a teller’s mistake put the bank on hook for that money? Again, it’s thousands of dollars that the tennager had no right to.

If you were to find a car on your property and the keys were still in the ignition but there was no one to be found. And you let the car stay for a few days, and no one ever came to retrieve it, does it suddenly become your car? For you to do with as you please? Of course not!

I see people excusing it because he’s a “kid.” He was 18 at the time. He’s an adult. We have to stop babying people. He could have done the right thing, contacted the bank and explained the situation. And if he wasn’t smart enough to know that the bank was going to want the money back, that’s on him.

In interviews, the teens “mother,” said that the teller should be held responsible for the money. Who in their right mind would ever go into banking if they were personally responsible for mistakes? Also this particular bank teller was not immune to consequences. According to multiple articles, she was forced into retirement.

Again, people can say that they would have done the same thing. People who say that are showing their lack of integrity. And it doesn’t change the fact that it’s still illegal and that there are consequences.


Categories: Commentary

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