Sometimes life might not give you lemons and in that case, just take the opportunity!

This kid’s university mistakenly gave him a lot of money and refused to accept their mistake so this guy did what he had to!

Check out the full story.

My university told me to steal $9000 from them… so I did

This story is back from when I was attending university several years ago, pre-pandemic.

I was the president of school club, we had good attendance but limited interest in leadership positions.

This is where it gets interesting…

I think this was largely due to being an LGBT organization and the university lists all university org officers on their website for anyone with internet access to see.

But anyway, that meant I was the only acting officer of this club making me the secretary and treasurer also.

The other “officers” were actually previous club presidents who had graduated, you just needed three student ID numbers to remain an active club.

Things were lovely so far!

I had planned a large ice cream social that went great!

I rented a ballroom on campus (free for student orgs), had ice cream catering, a live band, and almost 100 students in attendance.

It was a great way to begin the school year!

Anyway, it all cost something like $1,021.17 (not the actual amount, but something like that).

UH OH…

There were two methods to pay for this kind of thing: petition in advance for university funds or pay it yourself and submit a reimbursement after the fact.

In the past, the school had taken 6 months to pay a vendor I used and it was a stressful experience because I wanted them to be paid, I felt terrible having to just keep saying “the university is working on it” and going to the student org finance office twice a week to ask them about it for months.

So I figured I’d take the hit and wait for the funds myself, I could sweat it out on student loans and get the band and caterer paid in a timely fashion.

He knew he had to do something…

There’s a bunch of compliance paperwork to fill out, you have to submit itemized receipts, etc. etc. long story short it’s a process.

But I got it all filed and I waited.

About 4 months later I got an email prompting me of an activity in the student org finance portal to approve a direct deposit to my account.

You have to confirm the amount.

I wish I’d been drinking water because I would have spat it out dramatically, but the amount was for $10,211.70.

They had clearly just misplaced the decimal point. I could “accept” or “comment” on it so I wrote that the amount should have been $1,021.17.

He kept asking them to fix the problem…

In an hour I got a response back, along the lines of “yes, the amount is $10211.70.”

…so I responded “no, it should be $1021.17.”

And the response was that she “couldn’t find an issue.”

Now look, I’m terribly dyslexic (as in I actually am, I sometimes have to clarify this because it seems to be a quirky thing people without a learning disability say to play off a mistake) so I was genuinely thinking maybe I misreading it and causing her to be confused?

The admin really was at fault here…

Maybe for who knows why the computer put three numbers after the decimal so I was reading $1021.170 and thinking I saw $10211.70 or something.

I had a friend look at it and she confirmed I was, in fact, reading it correctly.

But hey, maybe the lady in the finance office was also dyslexic?

Or overworked?

Or could care less to actually look?

Whatever the case, I can explain myself better in person so I walked down to the office… I was a regular at this point.

He had to go by himself!

There was hardly ever a line because nearly everything is done online.

So I go up to the desk and say theres been a mistake on a reimbursement request for a club event.

I’m told to have a seat and she’ll chat with me in a moment.

So I waited for about half an hour while she sat on her iPhone at the desk, then she calls me up.

I explain I was over-reimbursed and she says, “look, as I’ve told you, there’s nothing wrong”

So I said, “but it’s off by a decimal place.”

That’s INSANE!

She kind of just sighed and said she could deny the reimbursement or I could accept it and leave…

She seemed to be getting very upset with me, probably because I was constantly asking her the previous year about the payment for that vendor.

I said I would accept it and left.

When you “accept” you can make a comment so I basically typed in the comment box that I tried to remedy the situation and was told there was no issue repeatedly, over chat and in person, and then was threatened to not be reimbursed at all.

I took screenshots of all the messages in case I had to defend myself.

After a few business days the money was direct deposited into my bank account the university has on file for tuition/student loans.

He knew he had to do something with the amount…

I let it sit there for a couple years while I was a student, expecting them to find the error and demand the money back.

When I was getting close to graduating and that never happened, I gave the money to a member in my club who’s parents stopped paying his tuition because he started testosterone.

They pulled funds past the deadline for federal student loans and obviously wouldn’t co-sign for private loans.

Interestingly enough, for any events over $15k you had to file invoices in advance and have it pre-approved.

He did what he had to do!

Anything under that they recommend you do this but you can be reimbursed with proper receipts and paperwork.

I think that’s why it didn’t raise any alarms in the computer system… at least that’s all I can reason.

It kind of haunts me to this day that I might randomly owe $9k at some point.

And I just don’t understand what I was saying wrong that she couldn’t understand me, and I worry I should have gone to her supervisor.

But I was 19 so I just did as I was told.

YIKES! That’s so weird!

Why didn’t she just check and accept her mistake?

Let’s find out what folks on Reddit think about this one.

This user shares how no one at university finance cares about such mistakes!

This user knows this guy did a good job and needs to appreciate himself for it.

This user wants to know if this guy tried spelling it out for the lady at the admin.

This user has an alternative thought on the story.

Exactly! This user knows the money didn’t go to waste so it is a win win.

Someone was being extra generous that day!

Not on purpose, but still.

If you liked that post, check out this story about a customer who insists that their credit card works, and finds out that isn’t the case.