Steven Fields: Georgia Teen Gets $30,000 Deposited Into His Bank Account By Mistake, Buys A BMW

In Monopoly, when the bank makes a mistake, you get $200 to spend as you will. In real life, if you spend money based on your bank’s mistake, you go directly to jail. Just ask Steven Fields, a Georgia man who spent $30,000 of another man’s money after it was inadvertently added to his bank account due to a teller’s mistake.

The 18-year-old happened to have the same name as a 70-year-old man to whom he wasn’t related and had likely never met. But both lived in the small Georgia town of Hull, and both did business at the same bank, according to WGHP (Greensboro).

When the elder Fields sold some land, he deposited $30,000 at the bank, identified by WGCL (Atlanta) as First Citizens Bank. The teller, who had apparently known the younger Fields for years, inadvertently deposited the money into the younger man’s account.

When the younger Fields discovered $30,000 that he wasn’t expecting in his bank account, he went on a spending spree, making several ATM withdrawals and eventually buying a BMW, among other things.

His spending finally caught up to him, and on Tuesday, a Madison County judge sentenced him to 10 years probation and ordered him to pay the money back.

Stacey Sorrow, who says she raised the younger Fields as her son, blames the bank for the young man’s behavior.

“He was excited. I would have been too. I told that woman up at the bank she should have looked over her mistake that she made if she knew there were three people up there with the same name.”

As for the elder Fields, whose money was spent by the younger man, he’s not buying any excuses.

“There’s some dishonest people in this world.”

He’s also not buying the apologies of the younger man or his family.

“The daddy apologized about a dozen times that he was sorry it happened and the boy said he was sorry. That’s about all he said. I don’t know if he was or not. It’s like when people say, ‘I’m sorry.’ I feel like they’re sorry they got caught.”

Steven Fields (the younger) is not the first person to find an unexpected sum of money (that they weren’t entitled to) in their bank account. Just last month, according to this Inquisitr report, South African worker Phemelo Mothupi wound up with $40,000 extra in his account thanks to a bank mistake, and he refused to give the money back.

As of this post, it is unclear if First Citizen’s Bank will return the money to the elder Steven Fields or force him to sue the younger Steven Fields to recover the $30,000 he lost due to the bank’s carelessness.

[Images courtesy of: Five Cent Nickel, WGHP]