A woman who accidentally paid $700 for a $7.50 latte at a Wellington coffee stall has had the money returned after a desperate search by the vendor.
Sam Somers, owner of Bean Here, was working Wellington’s annual Newtown Festival in his mobile food trailer on Sunday when a customer bank transferred him the wrong amount.
“When I looked at the bank account and there was an extra $700 in there when there shouldn’t have been, it was like, ‘what the hell?’” he told the Herald.
Somers does not have PayWave on his Eftpos machine, instead offering bank transfer as an alternative if customers need it.
At 10am, surveillance footage picked up a woman with blonde hair in her 40s or 50s buying a large latte.
Somers remembered the coffee order had regular cow’s milk, “which can be a bit unusual for Newtown”.
When he checked his bank account a few hours later, he was shocked to see the extra money in there.
Heading to BNZ on Monday, Somers said the bank advised him not to return the money to the bank account it came from, and instead report the incident to the fraud team.
He said he’d been advised that if the woman contacted him, she should also go to the bank’s fraud team who were aware of the issue.
As bank transfer is common at markets and festivals, he wanted consumers to be aware of the dangers that could happen.
He appreciated that bank apps now verified if buyers were paying the right person, with “confirmation of payee” becoming an industry-wide service about April last year.
“The one thing it doesn’t stop is putting in the wrong amount of money.”
This month, Somer hits 10 years in business. He has had two instances where payments haven’t come through, but never had a payment been so wildly overshot.
“This is the first time someone’s paid me something significantly way out of whack to what it should of been,” he said.
“I want to know what the hell I was meant to have sold [her].”
Newtown Festival is a popular one-day event in Wellington, which this year had more than 420 stalls, 200 artists, 1000 performers, and 16 stages.
Bean Here operates at the Newtown Fruit and Vegetable Market every Saturday, and at events around Wellington selling coffee, ice chocolates, slushies, and sometimes waffles.
The $700 wasn’t a happy accident for the seller.
“It feels morally wrong being in my bank account because I didn’t earn it. It’s someone else’s hard-earned money.
“I know what it’s like as a small business owner when you’re cash-strapped. And I want the customer to have that money because they probably have bills to pay.
“I’ve done some tough years in business ... So, I know what it’s like when you’re looking at your bank account and you’ve got to decide how to get food.”
His truck surveillance footage picked up the interaction on Sunday morning, which he said he showed the BNZ staff.
“It’s going to be a good story for the staff room,” he joked.
A BNZ spokesman said both of the customers involved in the mistaken bank transfer were BNZ customers, so they were able to work with them to make sure the funds were returned.
“Because mistaken bank transfers can come in a variety of forms the Banking Ombudsman Scheme (BoS) provides the best information regarding what happens when mistaken transfers occur.”
According to the BoS, banks can generally reverse a mistaken payment only with the consent of the person who received it.
In cases where that is refused, the only option is to take up the matter with the other party directly, possibly through court action.
BNZ confirmed to the Herald as of Monday evening, the $700 - minus the $7.50 cost of the coffee - had been returned to the customer.
There is legal precedent around cases in which people have received accidental windfalls, including that of an Auckland couple that received $158,000 in an account transfer error.
The couple were sentenced to six months’ community detention last month after spending the money on bills, a car, and sending some back to family in Samoa.
There was also the case of Rotorua couple Leo Gao and Kara Hurring, who fled the country after Westpac mistakenly deposited $10 million into their account in 2009.
Gao, dubbed the “accidental millionaire”, was sentenced to four years and seven months in prison while his former partner was given a nine-month home detention sentence.
Sammy Carter is a journalist for the New Zealand Herald covering news in the Wellington region. She has previously worked at the Rotorua Daily Post.