Man charged with grand larceny after spending millions the bank put into his account

[kida]

AP:

A man was charged with withdrawing $2 million from an account after a bank confused him with a man who has the same name. Benjamin Lovell was arraigned Tuesday on grand larceny charges. The 48-year-old salesman said he tried to tell officials at Commerce Bank in December that he did not have a $5 million account.

Lovell said he was told it was his and he could withdraw the money.

Prosecutors said the bank — which advertises itself as America's Most Convenient Bank — confused Lovell with a Benjamin Lovell who works for a property management company.

The lesser-funded Lovell gave away some of the withdrawn money and blew some of it on gifts, but lost much of it on bad investments, prosecutors said.

The district attorney's office did not immediately have information on his lawyer. Calls left with Commerce Bank on Wednesday were not immediately returned.

Normally I would think, "Hey, if the bank puts the money in your account, and they say it's yours, they're the ones who should be getting in trouble, not you."

But really, if all of a sudden there are millions of dollars in your bank account, you don't just start spending it. You find out where it came from and why. This was just stupid on his part.

More info on the story here.

 

[xboxundone]

*L* as the old saying goes if it is to good to be true then it is.

 

[HannerAnna]

i think this is wrong. it's kind of the man's fault for spending money he knew was not his, but maybe he thought he inherited it or something, i don't know.

but for sure the bank should get in trouble for this. it's their fault they put the money into the wrong account.

 

[kida]

While I agree that the bank should be held responsible for their mistake, the man is not totally in the clear. From the initial information, it doesn't seem like he tried to cover his bases at all. He just took advantage of the situation.