Delaware Student Gives Back $1,800 From ATM

Devon Gluck, 21, knew what he had to do when an ATM gave him $1,800 that didn't belong to him. It just took a while for him to compose himself to give it back, he said.

Gluck went to a PNC Bank teller machine at the Trabant University Center at the University of Delaware on Feb. 1.

He only wanted to withdraw about $40 but after the ATM made some noise, it gave him $1,800.

"It was such a wild thing," Gluck said. "It was the craziest thing that has happened to me. I had no idea how to react."

Despite urging from his friends to keep the money, Gluck, a senior studying finance, said he knew he had to return it. But he called his father the following day for confirmation.

"I called him just to get that reassurance because he's been a big influence on my life," Gluck said.

At first, Gluck said his father laughed about the situation, but then became serious.

"I know $1,800 is not something to joke about. It's not going to go unnoticed," Gluck said.

Gluck kept the money for 10 days, not the four days Delaware Online first reported. But he did eventually bring it back to the bank where it came from and asked to speak with the branch manager.

"I had to sit on it and compose myself before I walked in with it," he said.

He said the branch manager was shocked at the amount of money Gluck brought into his office.

Gluck said he realized after the ATM incident that it likely belonged to one of the students who were at the ATM before he arrived to get his money.

"It crossed my mind a day later that it could have been theirs," Gluck said, which was "eating away" at him.

PNC Bank spokeswoman Marcey Zwiebel confirmed that a student returned $1,800 to the bank and that the student's account from which the money was mistakenly withdrawn had been refunded.

"I know where the money actually comes from. For me, it made a lot more sense to turn the money back in," he said.

Last year, a man in Detroit was sentenced to 15 months in prison and was ordered to repay about $1.5 million that he was able to withdraw from ATMs, even though it wasn't his.