Mary Venegas, Sacramento, California woman shocked to find Bank of America refused to accept $6000 cash deposit after losing envelope in her backyard with some notes having suffered damage. But there was a solution at hand.
A Sacramento, California woman has told of being flabbergasted when her bank refused to deposit $6,000 in cash she had found after misplacing it four years ago after digging it up in her backyard.
Mary Venegas, 66, told CBS Sacramento she put down an envelope containing $6,000 in cash somewhere in her yard back in 2020 only to misplace it until recently.
After four years of searching for the cash – which she had initially planned to use to pay off her taxes – she found the envelope on the ground, covered up by cardboard.
‘I was flabbergasted!’
‘It was such a good feeling because we had been looking for it for so long,’ Venegas told the outlet.
‘I’m just a 66-year-old woman who is very, very forgetful,’ Venegas conceded.
But when she went to deposit the cash at her local Bank of America branch – where she has been a loyal customer for decades – the bank refused to accept it because some of the bills suffered water damage and had their corners torn off.
‘I was flabbergasted,’ she said.
Venegas, who is on a fixed income, had been hoping to use the money to pay off her winter utility bills, which she is still behind on.
‘I don’t like to owe people, and I don’t like to owe at all,’ Venegas explained.
‘I’ve been behind on bills I owe, and I’m not the kind of person that likes to owe.’
The US Department of the Treasury does exchange mutilated money, but only if half or less of the bill remains, or if it’s value is questioned because of its condition.
Solution when it comes to damaged or mutilated notes?
But the government process could take anywhere from six months to three years to accomplish.
‘You know what, I got to be honest. What if I die before I ever received it?’ Venegas asked, anxious to get the value for her cash.
‘When you get old, you think about all of these – you know, you worry about everything. And I don’t like to do that,’ she explained.
‘But when we found it, we thought, “Oh good, good good. Now we could pay off this and that.’
Fortunately, investigative reporters at CBS Sacramento realized that more than half of Venegas’ bills were still in tact and the value for each bill was clearly stated.
They then asked Bank of America to reconsider its refusal, with bank tellers accepted $5,700 of the $6,000 in cash.
She now has to send the other $300 to the Treasury to get replaced, as she said she has learned ‘to have my husband take [the money] to the bank.’
If you have mutilated money and have questions on what to do, the Bureau of Engraving & Printing offers answers here.
