If you use bill pay to pay bills it’s very important to make sure you enter the information correctly. As the person in today’s story found out, a typo in the address can cause a big issue.

However, in this unique situation, the typo actually worked in the payee’s favor.

Let’s read all the details.

You’re sure it’s mine? Fine, I’ll keep it.

This happened in 2014.

I had just lost my job and was in the process of looking for a new one, but didn’t have much money saved to pay bills in the meantime.

So I asked my father if I could borrow $1200 just to get me through to the next month and I would pay him back as soon as I started working again.

It’s nice that his dad was able to help him out.

He sent the money, I paid my bills, and got a new job shortly after.

As soon as I had the money to pay him back, I used my bank’s online bill pay option to send him a check.

I sent him a text and told him it was on the way and just assumed that was the end of it.

That wasn’t the end of it.

Well, a week went by and he hadn’t gotten it.

I thought maybe it took a few days for the bank to actually process the bill pay option because I hadn’t used it before.

So I asked him to just wait a few more days and see if it came.

Several days later, it still hadn’t gotten there, so I called the bank and asked them and they told me I could stop payment on it for free, so I did.

Then I just wrote a personal check and mailed it. I just assumed something went wrong with the online bill pay.

This was quite unexpected!

About 2 months later, I got a check in the mail from a medical facility in the state my father lives in for $1200.

I called and asked them about it and they told me, on a recorded line, that it was an overpayment on an account my father had with them and it was a legitimate check and was mine to keep.

At that point, I didn’t associate it with the bill pay thing I had tried to do a couple months before.

I did call my father to ask about his accounts with this place because there was no reason they should have my address to be sending me an overpayment if he had actually made one.

He realized what happened.

He had no idea what was going on because he hadn’t used that facility in a few years.

I looked up the place on Google and finally it dawned on me what had happened.

My father’s address was on Saddlewood drive at that point in time.

But when I typed it into bill pay, my phone autocorrected it to ‘sandalwood’ and it just happened to be the same numerical address.

And because my father’s name was listed as the payee, they erroneously attempted to apply it to his account.

So that’s where my check had gone.

He tried to explain what happened.

I tried to call them again and explain what happened and the lady on the phone was extremely rude to me.

She told me “I’ve already talked to you about this. I don’t know why you’re calling again. We sent you what we owed you. This account is settled and we will not be talking about it again.”

Again, this is a recorded line.

I asked if she was sure they owed me this money.

She practically shouted “YES!!”

And I just smiled and hung up the phone.

They eventually realized their mistake.

I deposited the check into my bank that day.

They didn’t try to call me back until about 6 weeks later.

I had been wondering how long it would take.

The person who called me was a different lady and she called to tell me that a mistake had been made and that I owed them $1200.

Allow me to refer you to the recorded calls…

I told her she was misinformed and she should go back and listen to the recorded calls that I had made to their office and gave her the dates.

I had been reassured multiple times that the money was mine and that I was in the clear to cash that check.

And then I hung up.

I haven’t heard a single thing about it since then.

It’s too bad the check went to the wrong place, but if the first lady on the phone had been willing to listen, it would’ve worked out differently.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

I wonder if the lady on the recorded call was reprimanded.

Being rude really backfired.

This European person is confused.

Yes, it’s wild but true.

We do, but we still mail checks too.

That was one lucrative turn of events!

Sending checks really is nearly a thing of the past.

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.