What Would You Do?

We all have heard of the metaphorical question, "What would you do if you were given a billion dollars?" But unless Mark Zuckerberg planned on walking up and handing you that amount of cash, the possibility of getting a billion dollars instantly won't ever happen.

But what if it is a lower amount? People play the lottery all the time, winning amounts that can range in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. But you have to put money into the game to get a chance to win. It's not the same as having money spontaneously appear in your bank account without your knowledge.

But what would you do IF money did spontaneously appear in your bank account? You didn't win the lottery. It's not something owed to you by the IRS, through your work, or a mistake in part from some company that you have done business with. What if $3,000 just one day appeared in your account? What would you do?

Sounds like it can't happen. But it did for me. I was doing some banking over the phone, making a small transfer from my savings to my checking account. When I checked the balance in my checking account, I found out there was an extra $3,000 sitting there. I tried pulling up the last ten transactions for more information to where this bountiful plenty came from, but the call kept on dropping.

So there I stood, with an extra $3,000 sitting in my account, with no idea where it came from.

So here is the question. What do you do with an extra $3,000 in your account? Do you suddenly go to the bank, make a hasty withdrawal, then act innocent when asked about the extra cash? Or do you do the right thing and try to find the owner?

I had posed this question on Facebook and received varying answers. While some people would do the right thing, others said they would have spent the money -- no questions asked. It wasn't as if the money was illegally obtained. Yet neither did I own the money in the first place.


I know what I did, and will share the story with you during the next post. But I want to know what you would do. If you came across $3,000 suddenly sitting in your bank account, what would you do?