And all I get in the mail are credit card offers, Victoria’s Secret catalogs, and solicitations to renew memberships to the museum a year in advance…
Ginny Hopkins gets all of the good mail, like a check from the Internal Revenue Service for $434,712. Pretty awesome, right?
Only it wasn’t real (shocking, I know). The IRS apparently made a mistake though it’s not certain how it happened. Hopkins indicated that she doesn’t generate the kind of income that would trigger anywhere near that amount of a refund: the Cleveland woman has been a waitress for most of her working life. According to Hopkins, she e-filed a return in January but had a problem and had to file an amended return in April. She was entitled to a refund of $754 – which she hasn’t yet received – but instead received a much bigger check.
You might wonder if she was tempted to keep it… Like most taxpayers, Hopkins was scared to cash it. She remarked to her local news station about the possibility:
They’ll put me in Alactraz, waiting on the night shift at Alcatraz. They’ll reopen the place.
But what if she had kept it? Chances are she wouldn’t have been thrown in jail – well, not immediately, anyhow. If she had cashed a refund check issued in error, she would have been required to pay it back (with interest, of course). But if it could be proved that she cashed the check knowing that it was issued in error and with no intention or means to repay the check, that would have been a crime.
Hopkins didn’t cash the check, however. She returned it – in person. She went to the IRS office in Cleveland, check in hand, to give it back, and was assured that the mistake would be investigated.
As for Hopkins, she has enjoyed her brief notoriety, saying: It made a great story, didn’t it?
