Most embarrassing money moves
By Leslie Hunt • Bankrate.com

If you've ever left your card in the ATM or overpaid a drive-through attendant without realizing it until later, you know exactly how it feels to make an embarrassing financial blunder.

I speak from experience. Just two months ago, I used my bank's online bill pay for the first time to make a payment to my electric company. The payment cleared my bank on time and everything seemed just grand -- until I got a final notice in the mail stating that if I didn't pay my bill, they'd shut my power off. Confused, and wondering where my money was, I called my bank to find out what had happened with my e-bill. The customer service representative investigated for a few minutes and read the e-bill information to me over the phone, including the information I had entered for the payee's name and address and the amount due.

And then it occurred to me: She had just read my address. The bank had sent a check from me to me -- all because I had entered in my own address instead of the power company's. I admitted the error to the woman, who kindly corrected the error, stopped the check payment and assured me that it had happened before. It didn't do much for my ego.

A caution, dear readers who may be new to online bill pay: Don't confuse the payee's address with your own. In this case, you are not the payee.

After a weeklong reader survey asking for the best financial blunders, I discovered I'm not alone in goof-ups. Here are the best of the best.

Same sum, different lender
"I had a situation where I wrote out two checks for the same amount and sent one to Ford for a car payment and the other to a local bank for an equity loan payment. Unfortunately, I switched the checks when I put them in the envelopes. The bank was kind enough to call me, so I mailed them another check. I was concerned about being late on the car payment, so I paid over the phone. In the end, Ford cashed the bank's check."

It's all in the mail
"I needed to run errands one day. I had the bills I had to mail and my ATM deposit envelope all together. I was rushing and discovered once I arrived at the ATM, that I had "mailed" my deposit with the bills. I had to go back to the post office (luckily that's where I mailed them and they were still open) and convince the guy behind the counter to open up the mailbox for me so I could get it out. He did, and I had to show him my ID and open the deposit up to prove it was mine."

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"One day I went to the mailbox, and there was an envelope with my checkbook in it. I had gone to the post office a couple of days earlier and managed to leave it there. I didn't even realize it was missing!

"Twice my local Safeway has called me to tell me I left my checkbook there. I don't carry a checkbook any more -- I just use my debit card."

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"I mailed the balance of my checkbook to pay a bill instead of the amount due. Several years later, I repeated this mistake and sent the balance of my checkbook to the same company again. Needless to say the other checks I wrote bounced."