John Wollstein of Waikiki went to bed Sunday night worrying about how he was going to raise enough money to get out of Chapter 11 reorganization bankruptcy.
He woke up Monday with an extra $1.7 million in his checking account.
Wollstein, 75, received a call from his accountant in the morning notifying him that he was considerably richer after his First Hawaiian Bank online statement showed his balance at $1,772,562.92. Wollstein said he normally carries a balance of $50,000 to $100,000.
"I’m currently in Chapter 11, so I thought my problems are solved," he said with a laugh.
Wollstein is a real estate investor who formerly was employed for about 20 years as a foreign-language coordinator with the state Department of Education.
He has about $5 million in mortgages from his approximately 50 properties on Oahu and Hawaii island and said he needs to sell or refinance some of his properties to raise $300,000 by year’s end for the next step in his bankruptcy plan. He said the extra $1.7 million in his account was like "pennies from heaven."
The error occurred when a teller at the Waikiki branch on Monday morning inadvertently added a couple of extra zeros before the decimal point and entered a deposit of $17,346.00 as $1,734,600.00. At the same time, the available balance on his statement showed $28,527.03. Wollstein initially was unaware of the mistake because the check was deposited by his resident manager.
"It adds a little sparkle to your day when your accountant calls you up and says you have an extra $1.5 million that you weren’t expecting," Wollstein said. "It’s fascinating to fantasize about what you can do with an extra million and a half."
But Wollstein’s newfound wealth was short-lived — by early afternoon the error had been discovered.
"In this case a new teller inputted an incorrect amount when making a deposit," First Hawaiian spokesman Brandt Farias said. "The transaction was subsequently reviewed and reversed out shortly thereafter. Validation errors, while rare, do happen from time to time, and the bank does have procedures in place to correct these items."
Wollstein said he didn’t think the error would go unnoticed for long.
"Everybody makes mistakes and they corrected it very quickly," he said.
