Cashing out

Where does morality come from? Some assume that it's God-given. If it weren't for God and the various books written in his name, we'd be savages beating each other with sticks. Or could it be part of our upbringing, our internal values, and the people we hold close to our heart?

I know. What a pukingly sappy start. I am about to close a checking account with a bank that has recently been purchased by another bank. I don't need the account anymore. All of the automatic deposits and bills have been removed, so all there is to do is take the six bucks or so I have left and invest it wisely.

Something strange happened on the way to my final withdrawal. On April 13, there was a deposit. Someone came into a branch and put $950 in cash in my account. I've had accidental deposits before, and within a day or two the transaction would be stricken from my record. Two weeks passed and nothing happened.

I was in a quandary. If the money was in my account, wasn't it mine? I had a brainstorm, which means I decided to do something stupid. I went to the ATM and took out $300, the maximum, in cash. I intended to do this three times, not exactly thinking ahead to what I was going to do with large wads of cash. After this, I could close my account without the deposit being an issue.

During this time I obsessively checked my balance. I knew that the money would be gone any day and now that I had taken out more money than I technically had, I could get into trouble, or in banking terms, get fee-d to death.

Something weird happened. Another deposit. It was cash, and for $1,250. I had more than enough to cover my withdrawal. One deposit could be a fluke but two was just plain strange. Clearly someone had access to my account now and that was a scary proposition. The cash withdrawal plan was about as smart as the guys in A Simple Plan. I went into the bank the following day, deposited the cash back into my account, enough to ensure that if the accidental deposits were removed that I would not be in the red. The teller told me that the bank was going to start charging a $25 fee for the overdraft protection that they signed me up for without my consent. It's hard to want to do the right thing when corporations are being bastards.

A fun side note about closing accounts is that it's difficult to do. I had to call the 1-800 number to get the overdraft account closed, with the fee expunged. Closing the checking account would require me going into a branch and doing it in person. I told the rep on the phone about the questionable deposits. She told me that she would send me copies of the deposit slips via mail. I waited.

I got them. The handwriting wasn't mine. The first deposit slip simply had my name and my account number. The second one didn't even have the account number. OK, that was weird. At least I knew for certain that the money didn't belong to me. I wanted it gone. Gosh knows I could use an extra couple of grand.

The following week ended the mystery. A bank rep called and said that there's another Zach Law in Atlanta. We should start a Facebook fan group. Someone came in and wanted to deposit into the other Zach Law's account but the undertrained teller used my account instead. The nagging feeling that I had to solve this issue was correct.

It wasn't a voice in my head and it wasn't a higher power. It was me figuring things out. I didn't do the right thing the first time, but in the end my conscience was clear. That's the moral to this story.