DailyDirt: Bank Error In Your Favor....

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Mon, Jul 29th 2013 5:00pm — Michael Ho

You might think that with all the supercomputer capabilities available that banks wouldn't make somewhat simple errors with huge dollar amounts. You would be wrong. Human errors can be greatly magnified by automated systems, and these errors seem to happen almost regularly. What would you do if you found more than a few extra bucks in your bank account? Here are just a few recent examples of some pretty big monetary mistakes.

Paypal created a temporary quadrillionaire by accidentally crediting $92,233,720,368,547,800 to a very surprised Chris Reynolds. The error was corrected quickly, but Reynolds said that if he had been able to keep the money, he would have paid down the national debt and maybe bought the Phillies. [url]
Bank of America mistakenly gave Ronald Page unlimited cash withdrawals from its ATMs -- which he used to extract over $1.5 million ($1,543,104!) over a few weeks. This 55yo Detroit resident lost it all gambling, and he's been court-ordered to repay this sizable sum. (Good luck collecting that, BoA...) [url]
Another accidental millionaire tried to run off with £3.4 million after his bank erroneously transferred that amount to his bank account. Hui "Leo" Gao wired the money to some foreign banks and took his girlfriend on a two year adventure. Eventually, he and his girlfriend were caught, and the bank recovered about £1.5 million. [url]

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Filed Under: accidents, atm, banks, error, mistakes, money, quadrillionaire
Companies: bank of america, paypal

22 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 29 Jul 2013 @ 5:13pm

I'd bet it all on red or black..
if I successfully doubled my money, I'd return half to the bank... If I lost it all.. then I'd just have to live with that court order to try to pay it back.
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- Forge, 29 Jul 2013 @ 7:17pm
  
  Re: I'd bet it all on red or black..
  Yeah, that would be pretty much my approach. I'd keep paperwork, too, so I could prove I bet everything, and not just most of it (with some in coffee cans in the backyard).
  
  Like you said, if you hit, you pay back, smirk and shrug, and walk away. If you miss, you declare bankruptcy or work under the table for the rest of your life or something.
  
  That one shot would be worth it, to many.
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  - PopeRatzo (profile), 29 Jul 2013 @ 8:08pm
    
    Re: Re: I'd bet it all on red or black..
    You would play roulette? You wouldn't even try a game where you could bump up your odds?
    
    I'm not a roulette player, only know the game generally. Is a red/black bet really a 50/50 proposition? Are there any outcomes where neither red nor black win?
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    - Chronno S. Trigger (profile), 29 Jul 2013 @ 8:26pm
      
      Re: Re: Re: I'd bet it all on red or black..
      0 and 00 would be losses if you bet on red or black. I don't know the hard numbers, but statistically speaking, if you bet money at a casino, you're going to lose.
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      - madasahatter (profile), 30 Jul 2013 @ 6:31am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: I'd bet it all on red or black..
        Except for blackjack, the odds favor the house on each game. Tho odds for the house vary. Blackjack has a statistical flaw that makes card counting work in favor of the player.
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        imbrucy (profile), 30 Jul 2013 @ 7:11am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: I'd bet it all on red or black..
        Card counting works to some extent, but with most casinos running 6+ decks with continuous shufflers, it is largely worthless.
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      - John Fenderson (profile), 30 Jul 2013 @ 9:19am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: I'd bet it all on red or black..
        Your odds of hitting a bet on red or black are 47.37%. (From http://wizardofodds.com/games/roulette/)
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    - wolffie, 30 Jul 2013 @ 7:18am
      
      Re: Re: Re: I'd bet it all on red or black..
      2 spots on the wheel that are green. 0 and 00
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  - That One Guy (profile), 29 Jul 2013 @ 8:17pm
    
    Re: Re: I'd bet it all on red or black..
    Unfortunately even if you won you could bet(pun unintended) that the bank would claim that since the money wasn't rightly yours, due to the mistake, that the winnings also shouldn't be yours, and that they should get all of it.
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    - btrussell (profile), 5 Aug 2013 @ 2:36am
      
      Re: Re: Re: I'd bet it all on red or black..
      The casino would want their money back and declare the bet illegal.
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out_of_the_blue, 29 Jul 2013 @ 5:20pm

One fairly innocent dolt, two thieves.
The first one just doesn't understand what money is: Ayn Rand nails it as only valid in so far as represents goods already produced, because the only thing that gives value to money -- even gold -- is human labor. Pieces of printed paper are not money, nor are bits in computer memory, not even if either are called "stock certificates" or some other term: those are not money, just ideas which The Rich use to control the poor. I'd give him a pass for just a quip, but wanting to buy the Phillies (or any sports team) as his idea of what to do with money reveals him as an all too typical dolt. It's an everyday horror that people aspire to nothing higher than to watch millionaires play meaningless contests -- and that they're millionaires for entertaining fools is obscene.

The other two are just plain thieves: when a bank -- even a big greedy one -- makes a mistake in your favor, it's criminal to keep the money. Throw 'em in jail.

Now, the only draw to this piece is sleazy appeal to those who desire the unearned; they'll go into a reverie of what they'd do with "free" money. That desire for the unearned is one point where Ayn Rand agrees with the Bible, which says: "The love of money is the root of all evil."
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- squall_seawave (profile), 29 Jul 2013 @ 5:28pm
  
  Re: One fairly innocent dolt, two thieves.
  ok i kinda agree with you about those who are criminals but when the baknk made a mistake in their favor they must be as quick to correct the mistake
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- Chronno S. Trigger (profile), 29 Jul 2013 @ 8:05pm
  
  Re: One fairly innocent dolt, two thieves.
  You're right on the criminal thing, you're wrong on the money thing. Money gets it's value from faith, not from labor. People have to have faith that this piece of paper will get them goods before they will accept it as payment for labor.
  
  If money gained it's value by the labor put into earning it, then inflation wouldn't be a thing. And if we're looking at it that way, only changing that one variable, the world economy would be long dead.
  
  I've never read Ayn Rand, but the more I hear about her writings, the less I want to read them. She sounds like a nutter.
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  - John Fenderson (profile), 30 Jul 2013 @ 12:40pm
    
    Re: Re: One fairly innocent dolt, two thieves.
    She sounds like a nutter.
    
    She was a nutter, not just in her writings (which glorify some of the worst aspects of humanity) but in her regular life as well.
    
    But wasn't nearly as nutty as her rabid fanbase.
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  - Sheogorath (profile), 7 Sep 2013 @ 12:18am
    
    Re: Re: One fairly innocent dolt, two thieves.
    [Ayn Rand] sounds like a nutter.
    The Bioshock games were based on 'Atlas Shrugged' by Ayn Rand. Make of that what you will.
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That One Guy (profile), 29 Jul 2013 @ 6:42pm

On the second one, at first I was thinking that the guy should be punished harshly for taking advantage of a mistake like that, then I saw that it was BoA that screwed up, the same bank that has attempted foreclosure on a family who had already fully paid their house off, and all of a sudden I just didn't care.
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Anonymous Coward, 29 Jul 2013 @ 6:52pm

Honestly....
Perhaps legalizing exploiting bank errors would keep the banks careful for once.
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Trelly (profile), 29 Jul 2013 @ 7:00pm

When he withdrew the money his records may show it was valued as less than what the bank claimed. After all, that's what the banks say when the clean out the wrong house during a foreclosure.
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Ninja (profile), 30 Jul 2013 @ 4:13am

Grab the money and make it yield more money before getting caught and having to give it back. I'd do that for sure ;)
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Anonymous Coward, 30 Jul 2013 @ 5:58am

Can someone explain why these guys are facing years in jail for a few million yet the executives at these banks are seeing raises for stealing billions?
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- That One Guy (profile), 30 Jul 2013 @ 9:46am
  
  Re:
  Well see if you start out with lots of money when you face the courts, you get high court treatment. However if the reason you're going to court is you started out with only a little money and somehow got lots of money, you get the low court treatment.
  
  Simple, see?
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btr1701, 31 Jul 2013 @ 10:48am

Money
That's a *lot* of money PayPal gave that guy. In the news stories I've seen on this, several of the idiot reporters have commented on why he'd waste the money paying off the nation's debt instead of spending it on something more exciting.

Well, the national debt is somewhere around $16 trillion. With $92 quadrillion, he could pay off the national debt in its entirety and still have $91.86 quadrillion left over.
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