I had a client send me an ACH that was legitimately a fat finger extra zero. For me, it was a "lot" of truck payments. For them, it was a rounding error that they were unaware of until I reached out and let them know about their mistake. I couldn't wait to make it right with them because it bothered me so much because suddenly I had a pile of money that was theirs and not mine.
I had a similar situation where someone had their email client configured with my address in the reply-to header. We shared a first initial, last name, and isp… also happened to be my email address. His email was firsnamelastname, or something similar. I emailed the guy several times explaining how to fix it, and that I was getting a lot of his business correspondence. Never heard from him.
Then one day I get a Chase Zelle email saying that someone was sending me money. Something like $500. Logged into the Chase app and sure enough, could have taken it with the click of a button.
I contacted the sender to explain the situation and recommended they call the intended recipient for a correct email address.
Couldn’t image just taking it knowing it wasn’t intended for me.
Had a similar experience. Was at a party when I suddenly received a notification from our country's equivalent to cashapp/Venmo. It was about $450, so not a lot but enough to be significant to many people. About a minute later I get a call from a seemingly young man who's very stressed telling me he sent the money to the wrong number and asking me to send it back. I told him don't worry I'll get your money back but I need to contact customer service first just to make sure it's safe for me to do so. I wanted to avoid some kind of charge back scam or similar.
So I called CS, they said it was safe to return the money and so I did and the guy called back just to thank me.
This reminds me of the terribly designed timesheet system I was using earlier this year, where I accidentally logged like 55 hours of work for something instead of 55 minutes… I got a shocking direct deposit that week and had to mail them back a large check. Really hope they definitely don’t mess up the 1099!
Not to mention that, despite having done nothing wrong, you can still be blamed and suffer the consequences. Imagine that company did notice, and the person who sent the payment went into a panic. They call their bank, that bank calls your bank, they put a hold on your entire account, and now your payroll, bills, leases, etc. all start bouncing and you can't accept payments from other clients to cover anything in the short term.
Now you've done nothing wrong, maybe even haven't noticed yet, and suddenly they kill your business overnight.
