Woman who had £31 million transferred into her bank account by mistake had big plans for the money

A Texan woman got the shock of her life when her bank mistakenly transferred over $37 million dollars to her account.

Ruth Balloon stumbled across the staggering sum as she checked her bank account, leaving the mum-of-two a multi-millionaire - albeit only briefly.

ABC13

Whilst most of us would have disappeared into the sunset after getting that deposit, the 35-year-old did return the money and joked that she’d had ‘big plans’ for the sudden windfall.

At the time, Balloon had been finishing a shift at the Roma Boots boutique in Dallas when her life suddenly changed – with an extra $37 million (£31m) to spare.

Recalling the moment, she told CBS Texas that she was initially just in shock telling them: “Wow, we have a lot of money'!"

Given that the life-changing sum had suddenly appeared, Balloon hoped that she had been ‘really gifted’ with the lucky windfall.

Deep down though, she knew it was too good to be true and took a breath before reaching out to her husband, Brian.

Unlike the sales assistant though, her spouse was less excited with Brian believing the millions of dollars were a scam and he immediately called their bank, LegacyTexas.

The couple were later told that a bank clerical error had occurred, with a teller punching in the account number instead of the figure – resulting in the staggering sum.

After realising the accounting error, the local bank apologised and removed millions of dollars from the couple’s account.

ABC13

Given that it had taken a few hours for the mistake to be rectified, Balloon had more than enough time to imagine how she’d spend the millions.

"First I was going to do 10% tithing. Then I was going to donate some money and then I would have invested in real estate,” she revealed during the interview but knew that she’d have to return the funds.

"Even if the amount was a real transfer, I knew the money did not belong to us. I could not spend money that does not belong to us,” she added: “I did daydream of what I would do with it if I did have it."

Whilst the millions might be gone, the mum-of-two did admit to taking a screenshot as proof of the strange story.

"I was a millionaire, I have a screenshot of it so I can say that now, it's quite a story!" Balloon joked, adding that she hoped the bank would give her a reward for her honesty.

"A 'thank you' reward would be a little bit good. Just for being a good customer and notifying them as soon as possible," Balloon told news crews.

We couldn’t agree more.

Topics: News, US News, Life, Real Life, Money

Katherine Sidnell

Katherine is an entertainment journalist with a love of all things nerdy. Starting out writing Doctor Who fan fiction as a kid, she has gone on to interview the likes of Matt Damon, James May and Dua Lipa to name a few. Published in The Sun, The Daily Mail and Evening Standard - she now joins Ladbible as resident nerd in chief.

@ksidnell