Julia Yonkowski Largo Florida woman finds nearly $1 billion mistakenly deposited in her bank account when she goes to withdraw $20. Desperate to give it back.
A Florida woman who withdrew $20 from an ATM found that she had become a billionaire – and now says she’s struggling to return the cash to its rightful owner.
Julia Yonkowski from Largo, west of Tampa, noticed the massive error after she decided to check her balance on Saturday only to find she had $999,985,855.94 sitting in her Chase checking account.
That has made her the 615th richest person in America – although the honest Floridian says she’s desperate to renounce the title as soon as possible.
‘I know most people would think they won the lottery but I was horrified,’ Yonkowski told WFLA.
She stuck to her original plan of withdrawing $20, but said the machine told that would cause an overdraft, despite the high nine-figure number indicated in her account statement.
‘It’s not my money.’
Yonkowski told WFLA that she skipped the withdrawal altogether and planned to go to the bank on Monday after being unable to get a Chase bank representative on the phone who could help her.
‘I know I’ve read stories about people that took the money or took out money, and then they had to repay it and I wouldn’t do that anyway because it’s not my money,’ Yonkowski told WFLA.
‘I just can’t get through,’ she said. ‘I get tied up with their automated system and I can’t get a person.’
Yonkowski said Saturday’s incident — despite having been in her favor — has her worried about the growing threat of cybersecurity. WFLA had no luck contacting Chase over the weekend, either.
It remained unclear how the bank customer’s account had accrued the nearly 1 billion amount. Yonkowski remains hopeful that the money will be removed from her account as soon as possible. Indeed.
