Woman sparks debate on returning $3,000 she accidentally received from her old job

A woman has revealed that her former employer accidentally deposited $3,000 into her bank account.

In a TikTok video posted on January 29, @rebuildingmary said that she logged into her bank account and noticed that there was “a lot of money in there that shouldn’t have been in there.”

She messaged her old job and explained that she got “paid by accident.” Her employer told her that the funds were deposited “via error,” as she hasn’t worked there for over two months.

The company then asked the TikTok user to “return the funds via check.”

“I’m 24,” she said. “I don’t have checks. I have zero checks. In fact, I don’t know anybody who has a checkbook anymore…Does anybody in their 20s have a checkbook?”

She noted that her “closest bank was 45 minutes away” and the location for her former job was “over an hour away.”

“So no, they fired me, and now I have to go out of my way to fix their f*** up,” she added.

The video has over 1.9m views, so far, with viewers in the comments acknowledging that it shouldn’t be @rebuildingmary’s job to fix this mistake.

“They can reverse the deposit,” one comment reads. “It is NOT your responsibility, they should say thank you for being honest.”

“They made the error,” another TikTok user said. “They need to fix it. It’s not your responsibility.”

Other people shared their suggestions for handling this situation in the comments, as well.

“Do not return it via check,” one viewer wrote. “Tell them to do an ACH pull back and get written confirmation they removed the funds and you will not be taxed.”

In a follow-up video, the TikTok user said that she reached out to the office that handled payroll and told them that she couldn’t bring over a check.

In response, the company told her that they can contact the bank to reverse the transaction without a check.

“I will also be verifying this payment will not show up on my taxes in any way and someone recommended to check my PTO day too,” the text over the clip reads.

She claimed that the company she worked for was “very unorganized.”

“How do you pay somebody almost three grand?” she said. “How do you mess that up? How do you not take me off?”

In a different video, she revealed that she was terminated after being harassed, stalked, and blackmailed by her ex-husband.

“My lawyer said I probably have grounds to sue for wrongful termination and I wasn’t going to but this genuinely made me mad y’all,” she wrote in the comments.

Speaking to The Independent, @rebuildingmary revealed that the money was reversed after four days and she’s remained in contact with her lawyer.

“The main point of all my videos is the fact that I was fired due to my ex-husband harassing me,” she explained. “That’s where I want all the attention to go because I’m not the only woman who has had this happen where the police do nothing to help the victims of domestic violence. The lack of law enforcement support in this area is resulting in me having to face several repercussions from this such as being fired and having to change my entire identity to protect myself from further harassment.”