Texas Woman Finds $37million Accidentally Deposited In Her Bank Account

A Texas woman discovered a nice little Christmas bonus in her bank account this week: $37million.

Ruth Balloon told CBS11 that she was finishing up her shift at Roma Boots in Dallas on Wednesday when she decided to check if she'd been paid — and she had — with an eight-figure sum.

"I was like, 'Wow, we have a lot of money!'" she told the site. "I hoped someone really gifted us with that $37million."

After taking a breath, she showed her husband the $37,203,337 balance — and he instantly reported it to the LegacyTexas Bank.

Any hopes of a secret holiday benefactor were immediately dashed when the bank confirmed it was indeed a clerical error. They apologized... and took it all back.

Although she knew it was a very long shot that she'd be able to keep any of the dough, Ruth said she is still keeping her fingers crossed for a reward for her honesty, like a finder's fee.

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

And although she only had the money for a day and a half, she already had planned how she was going to spend it; but not before giving her church $3.7million of it.

"First I was going to do 10% tithing," she said. "Then I was going to donate some money and then I would have invested in real estate."

In a statement, the bank told the site that when handling a foreign currency deposit made by Ruth, a bank clerk accidentally put her account number into the amount field by mistake.

"On Tuesday, December 10, our client made a foreign currency deposit into her LegacyTexas account. Due to the fluctuation in exchange rates, all foreign currency transactions must be manually entered into our system through our back office. When our client's deposit was being keyed in, our representative entered her account number into the amount field by mistake," they said.

"Although our client brought the error to our attention and the transaction was immediately reversed, less the amount of her original deposit, it would have been caught and corrected during our evening processing. Rest assured, our systems are sound, and this manual entry error has been addressed."

So not only did the bank strip her of $37million in one day, they also might have have just told the world what her bank account number is.

Either way, there's one thing they cannot take away from Ruth: "I was a millionaire, I have a screen shot of it so I can say that now," she said. "It's quite a story."

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