Woman Finds $10 Billion in Account

STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) - When Gun-Britt Marklund checked her bank account to see whether her monthly child allowance check had arrived from the Swedish government, she knew that what she saw was too good to be true.

Her account showed a balance of more than 93 billion kronor (US$10 billion) on Sunday.

"You never see amounts like this," said the 40-year-old teacher and mother of three children, ages 10, 13 and 15. "I thought this money doesn't belong to me. Something must be wrong."

Marklund's hunch was correct. On Monday, she informed her bank of the inflated child allowance payment — twice the size of Sweden's defense budget — and the bank acted swiftly.

An employee had punched in a few too many zeros when funneling payments from the social insurance office into Marklund's account, ICA Bank spokesman Bo Lagergren said.

The transaction was canceled and gone were the 93 billion kronor along with 15 million kronor (US$1.6 million) of interest accrued over the three days before the error was detected.

Lagergren said the bank had sent Marklund a bouquet of flowers along with apologies.

"We hope she'll be happy with that," Lagergren said. "But it's of course very difficult to find compensation on this level."

Marklund, who lives in Haernoesand, 350 kilometers (220 miles) north of the Swedish capital, Stockholm, said her child allowance is normally 3,000 kronor (US$322) a month.