Grandmother Finds $49,000 Inside Free Couch Given Away Online
What would you do if you picked up a free couch and found it stuffed with money?
Well, that is exactly the scenario Vicky Umodu found herself in after a rather decent find on Craigslist.
The Californian woman thought she'd found the freebie of the century when she found a pair of sofas and a matching chair that were being given away for free.
Speaking to ABC7, Umodu said she couldn't believe her luck.
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"I said, 'Maybe it's a gimmick.' I said, 'Let me call them,'" she said.
But it was no joke. The family giving away the free lounge set had inherited it from a loved one who had recently passed away, so they were getting rid of everything.
Umodu said she was thrilled, especially considering the two couches and matching chair looked great in her new home.
"I just moved in, and I don't have anything in my house. I was so excited, so we picked it up and brought it in," she said.
But when the couch arrived, she discovered something strange.
There was something inside one of the couch cushions.
"I thought it was a heat pad," she said.
But what she found was no heat pad. However, it could be used to buy many heat pads.
She found envelopes brimming with cash. She found $49,000 large, to be exact (US$ 36,000, £28,700).
"I was just telling my son, 'Come, come, come!' I was screaming, 'this is money! I need to call the guy'," she said.
She told KABC-TV that she never thought of keeping the money for herself.
"God has been kind to me and my children, they're all alive and well. I have three beautiful grandchildren, so what can I ever ask from God?" Umodu said.
So she picked up the phone and called the family that had given her the couch to tell them the good news.
While the family had no idea why their relative decided to use the couch as a banking facility, they revealed they had found other deposits of cash hidden throughout the house.
And they didn't let Vicky Umodu's good deed go unpunished.
As a token of appreciation, the family gave her $3,000 (US$ 2,200, £1,750) to buy a new refrigerator for herself.
“I was not expecting a dime from him,” the San Bernardino grandmother said.
“I was not.”
Rachel Lang