If someone transferred money to your account by mistake, don’t touch it. Call your bank, report the deposit as one you don’t recognize, and let the bank handle the reversal. The money isn’t yours to keep, and spending it can trigger theft charges, an overdrawn account, and a civil lawsuit from the sender.
Do This First
Call your bank as soon as you notice the deposit. Tell the representative you don’t recognize the transaction and believe it was sent in error. Give them the date and amount so they can flag it. That call creates a timestamped record showing you acted honestly, which matters if anyone later questions your intent.
Follow the call with a written notice. Under federal rules for electronic fund transfers, an effective error notice should include the type of error, the date, and the amount, along with enough detail to identify your account.1Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. 12 CFR Part 1005 – Electronic Fund Transfers (Regulation E) – Section 1005.11 Keep copies of what you send and what the bank sends back.
While the bank investigates, leave the money completely alone. Don’t spend it, don’t transfer it, don’t move it into savings to earn interest. Act as if that money isn’t there. Even a small movement can look like you were trying to benefit from someone else’s error.
Don’t Send the Money Back Yourself
If a stranger contacts you claiming the deposit was theirs and pleads with you to send it back through a payment app or wire, refuse. This is one of the most common payment scams running right now.
The scheme works like this: a scammer links a stolen credit card to a payment app, pushes money to you, then messages you frantically asking for a refund. You send money back from your own funds. Days or weeks later, the real cardholder disputes the fraudulent charge and the original payment is pulled from your account. You’ve lost the money you “returned” and the deposit is gone too.
Legitimate senders recover their money through their own bank, not by asking you to wire funds. Anyone pressuring you to move fast or threatening consequences if you don’t return money immediately is telling you what they are. Let your bank’s process handle it.
The Money Isn’t Legally Yours
An unexpected deposit doesn’t become your property because it landed in your account. The doctrine of unjust enrichment prevents anyone from profiting at another person’s expense because of a mistake, and courts consistently require recipients to give the money back. That rule applies whether the sender was a stranger, a business, or the bank itself making an internal error.
The burden sits on you, not the sender. Once a mistaken payment reaches your account, the law presumes you’ve been enriched at someone else’s cost. If a sender sues, you’d have to explain why you shouldn’t return the funds, and almost nothing works as a defense. “I already spent it” doesn’t. Neither does “they should have been more careful.”
How the Bank Pulls the Money Back
Your bank doesn’t need your permission to reverse a mistaken deposit. The account agreement you signed gives the bank authority to debit your account to correct errors.2HelpWithMyBank.gov. Banking Errors and Disputes The Uniform Commercial Code also gives banks a right of chargeback when a provisional settlement fails, regardless of whether you’ve already spent the credited funds.3Legal Information Institute. UCC 4-214 Right of Charge-Back or Refund
The mechanics depend on how the money arrived. For ACH transfers — the standard for direct deposits and most bank-to-bank payments — the originating bank can request a reversal within five banking days of the settlement date.4Nacha. ACH Network Rules: Reversals and Enforcement Wire transfers are much harder to claw back. Once a wire clears, it’s generally irrevocable. The sending bank can ask for the funds back, but neither bank is obligated to cooperate if you’ve already withdrawn the money.
Because the bank can debit your account whenever it confirms the error, spending the deposit is genuinely dangerous. If the money is gone when the reversal hits, your balance goes negative. You owe that negative balance, and after a short grace period the bank can start piling on overdraft-related fees.5Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. 12 CFR Part 1005 – Electronic Fund Transfers (Regulation E) – Section 1005.11(d)
What Happens If You Spend It
Spending a mistaken deposit can result in criminal theft charges. The logic is simple: if you knew the money wasn’t yours and used it anyway, that’s the same as taking someone else’s property. A prosecutor has to prove you knew the deposit was a mistake, but that bar isn’t as high as people assume. A $120,000 credit landing in a checking account that normally holds a few hundred dollars speaks for itself.
The severity of the charge depends on the amount. Every state sets a dollar threshold where theft jumps from misdemeanor to felony, and those thresholds range from $500 to $2,500. A few thousand dollars spent from a mistaken deposit can put you in felony territory in many states, which carries the possibility of prison time rather than fines or probation alone.
In a 2019 Pennsylvania case, a couple faced felony theft charges after their bank accidentally deposited $120,000 into their joint account. They spent most of it on vehicles, paid off bills, and gave some away. Both told investigators they knew the money wasn’t theirs. On top of the criminal charges, the bank hit them with roughly $107,000 in overdraft-related fees once the correction posted.
How Long the Bank’s Investigation Takes
Once you report the error, your bank has to investigate under Regulation E. In most cases, the bank has 10 business days from receiving your notice to decide what happened. It can extend the investigation to 45 days if needed, but has to provisionally credit your account during those additional days.6Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. 12 CFR Part 1005 – Electronic Fund Transfers (Regulation E) – Section 1005.11(c)(2)
After the investigation ends, the bank has to report results to you within three business days. If it confirms the error, it corrects your account within one business day of that finding.
Payment Apps Work Differently
Traditional bank transfers have built-in reversal mechanisms. Peer-to-peer apps like Venmo, Zelle, and Cash App generally don’t. Most treat person-to-person transfers as final. Venmo’s purchase protection, for example, only covers eligible transactions tied to business profiles, debit card purchases, or payments tagged as goods and services. A standard transfer between two individuals isn’t covered.7Venmo. Venmo Purchase Protection – Buyers and Sellers
That gap is exactly what scammers work. If a stranger pushes money to you on a payment app and immediately asks for it back, do nothing except contact the app’s support team. Explain what happened and let the platform handle the reversal through its own dispute process. Sending money back through a new transaction creates a second, separate payment you may never recover if the original turns out to be fraudulent.
One tax wrinkle to watch: a payment app may issue you a Form 1099-K reporting the mistaken payment as income. If that happens, contact the platform to request a corrected form. The issuer’s name and phone number appear in the upper left corner of the 1099-K.8Internal Revenue Service. Actions to Take if a Form 1099-K Is Received in Error or With Incorrect Information A returned mistaken deposit isn’t taxable income — it only counts once money becomes your undisputed possession, and money you report and return never gets there.9Internal Revenue Service. Publication 525 (2025), Taxable and Nontaxable Income
How Long the Sender Can Come After You
The sender doesn’t lose the right to recover the money just because time passes. Civil claims for unjust enrichment or restitution are subject to statutes of limitations that typically run two to five years depending on the state and how the claim is framed. In some states, a quasi-contract claim can carry a six-year window.
Banks usually act faster than individual senders because their systems catch errors automatically. But even after the ACH reversal window closes, the sender retains the right to sue you directly. Waiting out the clock isn’t a strategy. If the amount is large enough to justify a lawyer, someone will eventually come looking for it.