The Bank Put $4.7 Million in My Account by Mistake. Then It Froze Everything I Owned and Called Me a Thief

Imogene Tackett lived in a small brick house in town, four blocks from the courthouse, with a porch swing and a magnolia tree.

She was seventy-eight. She opened the door with a rolling pin in her hand. I hoped it was for a pie.

“You’re the thief,” she said.

“No, ma’am. I’m the man they’re calling a thief. It’s not the same.”

She studied me for a long moment. Then she lowered the rolling pin.

“Well,” she said. “You’ve got a decent face. Come in.”

Her kitchen smelled like cinnamon. She sat me down and told me everything.

Her husband, Floyd, had died in January. Forty-one years of marriage. His life insurance and the annuity he’d paid into his whole working life came to four point seven million dollars. Everything she had to live on for the rest of her life.

The insurance company had wired it to her bank on March 3rd.

It never arrived.

“The bank says it’s under investigation,” she said. “They say they can’t tell me anything. My Medicare supplement is due. My property taxes are due. I’ve been living on my Social Security and selling pies to the church ladies.”

She said it without self-pity. Just facts.

I showed her my statement on my phone. Her money, sitting frozen in my account.

She put on her reading glasses and studied the numbers. Then she reached for a pencil and a scrap of paper and wrote two account numbers, one above the other.

Hers. And mine.

They were the same, except for one digit. A seven where there should have been a one.

“Somebody typed it wrong,” I said.

“Somebody did,” said Imogene.

She took off her glasses and looked at me.

“And now they’re trying to blame you so they don’t have to pay me interest.”