Imagine calling to check on your bank balance and hearing a seemingly impossible number: $99 billion. Then imagine that this impossible number is negative. That would be quite a shock to the system. That’s what Sheila Henderson of Chicago Heights found out.
“Your checking account has a balance of negative $99,999,999,545.90.”
That was the automated message Henderson heard when she called to check on the balance of her dead mother’s bank account. She was just calling to check on the balance so she could pay some of the expenses from her mother’s funeral. Somehow $99 billion had been withdrawn from the account. Henderson was extremely concerned for obvious reasons. Being a signer on the account, she didn’t know if she would be responsible for the balance. She also still had funeral bills to pay.
“I was in shock. I couldn’t even speak. I called it again.”
She checked multiple times to be sure; hoping that the message was in error and that she’d hear the correct balance.
Then she called her brother. She wanted to confirm from another source that was the balance of her mother’s bank account. At first he didn’t understand that the number was negative.
“I called my brother to listen to it and the first thing he said, ‘You have been hiding all this money from me. Why did you do this? Come on. Let’s go.’ I was like, ‘No, it says it is a negative amount on it.”
Chase is currently trying to figure out how an error like this could have happened. It’s one heck of a mistake. They are also working on restoring the account to the balance it should have. Even with this hiccup Henderson says she’ll still stick with Chase.
“I think I might stick with Chase. I do like them. People make mistakes. But it’s a scary mistake for me though.”
Featured image via Flikr by Ken Teegardin available under a Creative Commons license.
