A Florida horse clinic receptionist who was accidentally overpaid $400,000 has been arrested after failing to inform her employer, and now stands accused of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Yessica Arrua, 29, from Wellington, Florida, insists that she thought the extra cash was a ‘bonus’, which would be one hell of a bonus considering her annual salary is $60,000.

She was actually being paid her monthly salary + someone else’s from February 2022 to January 2023, and that other person didn’t even notice because she “did not monitor her checking account and deposits for the past year”. How is that even possible? She didn’t open her banking app for a whole year?

Yessica spent more than half the cash on luxury shopping and transfers to her family. $80,000 of it was used to buy a food truck for a friend of her mum’s.

Eventually, The Palm Beach Equine Clinic (PBEC) spotted the mistake and alerted the company’s payroll provider, Harbor America, leading to Yessica’s arrest.

Bit of a bummer of a situation really. Obviously the responsible thing to do would have been to let her employer know that she’d been overpaid. It would also have been the smart thing to do because if she had informed them immediately, she wouldn’t be facing prison time right now.

On the other hand, maybe she did really think that it was a bonus? After all, there’s a lot of money in horses and horse clinics. Maybe she genuinely thought that her employer had a fantastic year, and had decided to spread the wealth to their employees? To the tune of an extra $400k for the receptionist?

Seems unlikely, but it could be that she assumed that her boss was extremely impressed with her work; answering the phone, ordering supplies, booking appointments and whatnot.

She’s also really unlucky that the vet whose salary she was pocketing didn’t even notice. If this oblivious vet had realised the first month her salary didn’t come in, she could have flagged it and Yessica could have pleaded ignorance. After collecting the money every month for a year and spending it, however? She had no excuse. Well, apart from claiming that she thought it was a bonus, which no one believes.

Well anyway, at least she got a good year of luxury shopping out of it. At some point, she probably thought she would get away with it too. Alas, it wasn’t to be. Unlucky Yessica.

For the Thames Water boss who got a £195,000 bonus after just three months in the job, click HERE. Hmm…