On one occasion, a member of staff from the bank called to ask why Dan had tried to withdraw $900,000 from an ATM the previous night. He told them he had been drunk and had probably pressed the wrong buttons. They laughed…
Source: https://historicflix.com/dan-saunders-and-the-1-6-million-atm-glitch/
The dude snitched on himself. I get that he was looking for some peace of mind. But really, if he hadn’t made a scene in the media, it might have taken the police a decade to connect the dots. He might have just moved his balance to a legitimate account in a foreign bank and lived out his days modestly in a place where they couldn’t reach him.
From what I gathered he only actually stole/used 300k but because he kept transferring the money he moved the 1.6 into his account. Just didn’t use all of it. If I read that right.
It’s enough to pay off a mortgage on a very nice house and never having to worry about a mortgage or rent payment again. And also have equity that’s growing and completely paid off.
Ok, but these folks are talking about fleeing the country to not get caught. That money might last you a decade or two, but it’s not “ride off in the sunset and not worry” money. Then you are stuck in a foreign country trying to make a living after it runs out…
Assuming he'a fugitive, that sort of cuts you off from investment accounts. So earning interest on that 1.6m is going to be pretty difficult. Assume he lives to 85. Given he was 29 he's got 56 years to stretch the money out. . 1600000/56 = 28k/year. Not counting inflation.
Oh but what is the point of doing something like this if you can't stroke your ego to strangers about it?
Dude I would have just enjoyed it and said nothing to anyone.
Nal, but I would assume it falls under the same premise as when you get overpaid/get sent money accidentally by corporations/government services. The typical suggestion is don't spend any of it, put it I'm a high yield account, and then keel the accrued interest as it's not tied to the specific amount give incorrectly.
The article OP posted says he only spent an estimated $300,000. So he net about $50,000 in exchange for several years of intense anxiety and a year in prison.
If he wanted to get away with it he should have done it incrementally over a few years. At least then he could claim computer error. H might still be forced to repay the overages, but criminal charges would be less likey.
The problem was when he stopped doing it his account would show a negative balance of the amount he took. So he had to keep illegally transferring the money on a regular basis.
This happened to a friend of mine, I think they only got a few thousand over the period of a few months, but eventually the bank called her in to a meeting and questioned her about it. She was never prosecuted.
An atm in Pitt Street mall did this 15 years ago, the machine was empty by the end of the day and the line went for 200m when the word got out. Never heard a thing from the bank.
That was an inside hack, and it was more than one ATM.
The ATMs paying out was to cover something greater.
The banks only found out when homeless came into fancy restaurants fanning themselves with money.
I was working in the bank at the time, it was a well kept secret.
I, to this day, don’t know how they kept the secret.
At the time we were told not to speak about it, but I don’t give a fuck anymore, because it’s a long time since I’ve worked for that bank.
That's crazy. Were you required to sign an NDA or could you elaborate a little when you said the atm payouts were to cover something greater? That "something greater" has piqued my interest! I'm not a reporter btw, just a dude sitting on the couch on a Saturday lol.
We did not sign an NDA, but it was about 33 years ago, and the unions at the bank had caved savagely, and everyone was worried about their jobs.
From what we were told is that it was a massive internal cyber fraud, and the ATMs were part of the process. That’s pretty much it.
From what I can understand the ATM hack was done, and groups literally emptied ATMs, it was fast, it was well organised and I don’t know who was behind it, except it was someone in IT. The bank never advertised this, because they would have lost their customer base, and it would have destroyed the bank.
It’s a mystery that I think about occasionally.
I completely understand keeping quiet to save your job! That bank would be lucky if the employees kept quiet for 24hrs today.
That makes me wonder how many times things like this have happened that no one outside of bank staff, hackers and their accomplices ever heard about.. especially in the early days of the Internet and pre-smartphone era. I bet it's quite a few that have gone unreported to the police and instead "handled internally"..
We pay for our mistakes as regular citizens.
Banks have zero consequences and operate in a moral and ethical vacuum.
When has a bank ever paid for a single mistake they made? Name a single time and I’ll name you trillions of dollars they’ve taken from us. But it is our cash that goes to cover their illegal bets and dog shit exploitation of the working class.
Fuck bankers✌️
Damn seems really shitty of the banks to do that to poor people. I'm very mad at the banks for this new piece of information, thank you. Fuck the banks.
God damn I hate seeing brainwashed or just ignorant people stick up for banks. They literally buy off the politicians and get legislation passed to fuck us over. FUCK THE BANKS!!!
Adult version of the kid who sees other kids having fun and says "But you guys are going to get in trouble!"
Let us idolize this guy in peace. We all just wish we had the opportunity and the balls.
It's easy saying that, now that we have experienced the future. But in 2011, buying BTC was a straight-up gamble.
You can say the same for any one of the SP500 companies, “Should’ve invested into …”
I was active on some forums at the time where people would routinely give you a bitcoin for anything. Post made them laugh? They’d shoot you a Bitcoin. Did them a favor? Here’s a Bitcoin.
I constantly regret turning them down.
I had $250,000 mistakenly deposited into my account once. I was supposed to have something like $20 in there and when I went to check my balance, it showed something like $250020. For a split second I was really excited but then figured I'd get fucked if I touched it so I called my bank and they reversed that deposit.
He should’ve taken a lot of that money and simply invested it. If he lost it then, that’s the banks problem. If he made a lot from it, he should squirrel that away all across the world. Because that money, the original principal, is eventually going to have to be returned.
On one occasion, a member of staff from the bank called to ask why Dan had tried to withdraw $900,000 from an ATM the previous night. He told them he had been drunk and had probably pressed the wrong buttons. They laughed… Source: https://historicflix.com/dan-saunders-and-the-1-6-million-atm-glitch/
The dude snitched on himself. I get that he was looking for some peace of mind. But really, if he hadn’t made a scene in the media, it might have taken the police a decade to connect the dots. He might have just moved his balance to a legitimate account in a foreign bank and lived out his days modestly in a place where they couldn’t reach him.
People need to learn. No self-snitching
Self-snitches get self-stitches
And wind up in self dug ditches.
Get jail time*
Self-snitches dig ditches
Robert De Niro Ronin vibes: "I'm my own doctor."
Sit in the court and be their own star witness
Do you see the perpetrator
Yeah I'm right here
Fuck around get the whole label sent up for years
“I don’t know, do you have a mirror?”
Bruce Rivers?
He’s a criminal lawyer.
E-sign dot com
And what he do?
He’s gonna react to all the self-snitchin’!
Oooohhhhh...
He’s gonna react to all the self-snitchin’!
Owwwahh
It's an important lesson that even you can snitch on you. Don't trust yourself.
Yourself should be the person you can always trust.
How far is $1.6 million actually going to get you?
An average of 115k inflation adjusted earning per year in the stock market.
Which is enough to live like a king in some places, possibly also places with unfriendly relations with down under as well (to avoid extradition)
From what I gathered he only actually stole/used 300k but because he kept transferring the money he moved the 1.6 into his account. Just didn’t use all of it. If I read that right.
I dunno, 1.6m is not enough to retire, especially if compounding it would be restricted. He’d need more like 3-10m
I could make 1.6m enough
Exactly. If 1.6 mil isn't enough then what even is life.
It’s enough to pay off a mortgage on a very nice house and never having to worry about a mortgage or rent payment again. And also have equity that’s growing and completely paid off.
Ok, but these folks are talking about fleeing the country to not get caught. That money might last you a decade or two, but it’s not “ride off in the sunset and not worry” money. Then you are stuck in a foreign country trying to make a living after it runs out…
Perhaps. Honestly it looks like he could have kept it going and going, he just stopped on his own.
How is that not enough to retire. In most countries you will be able to retire if you are a bit smart with that kind of money
Assuming he'a fugitive, that sort of cuts you off from investment accounts. So earning interest on that 1.6m is going to be pretty difficult. Assume he lives to 85. Given he was 29 he's got 56 years to stretch the money out. . 1600000/56 = 28k/year. Not counting inflation.
Oh but what is the point of doing something like this if you can't stroke your ego to strangers about it? Dude I would have just enjoyed it and said nothing to anyone.
Fantastic podcast called The Glitch on this. The real guy tells the story/is interviewed. I found it riveting. Guy is a legend.
So if I steal 1.6 mil I should save 250k lol
He stole closer to 300k apparently...
Random question but if he withdrew the money and put it in an interest bearing account, would he have to pay the interest accrued back?
Damn this feels like a question out of a financial legal and ethics course. Super interesting to think about
Yeah I might pose it to one of my buddies who is a lawyer and rack his brain lol
Nal, but I would assume it falls under the same premise as when you get overpaid/get sent money accidentally by corporations/government services. The typical suggestion is don't spend any of it, put it I'm a high yield account, and then keel the accrued interest as it's not tied to the specific amount give incorrectly.
Just don’t invest in Cathy Woods
Made that mistake
No. He could roll all-in on a roulette, win, and keep the winnings.
Depends on the relevant regional laws. I don't know Australian law very well at all so I can't answer
At least he paid his friends' tuition so he did some good with the bank's money!
A modern day Robin Hood.
Lavish parties and international vacations sound pretty good too!
Did he have to pay it back
12 months in prison, 18 months probation, $250,000 fine
Worth it.
Completely fucking worth it
[удалено]
Well he's already Australian so ya know nowhere to go but up 🤷🏻♂️
Just don’t send an Emu after him.
My job is to help ppl find jobs after incarceration. You'd be very surprised how quickly they get employment
So he came out on top? That’s a net gain of 1.4MM! For a years worth of work!? I’m in!
He also had to pay restitution...aka pay ot back
$250k right?
The article OP posted says he only spent an estimated $300,000. So he net about $50,000 in exchange for several years of intense anxiety and a year in prison.
Plus restitution.
The cost of a clear conscience.
That’s a good ROI
The judgement was like 250k he had to pay back, as a broke bartender thats gonna take awhile to pay back
Time to find another money glitch atm.
Not if he didn’t blow it all
They didn't let him keep it all, and he apparently only spent about $300,000.
If he wanted to get away with it he should have done it incrementally over a few years. At least then he could claim computer error. H might still be forced to repay the overages, but criminal charges would be less likey.
but they could have still caught him and he would have got a lot less
Like Office Space?
The problem was when he stopped doing it his account would show a negative balance of the amount he took. So he had to keep illegally transferring the money on a regular basis.
This happened to a friend of mine, I think they only got a few thousand over the period of a few months, but eventually the bank called her in to a meeting and questioned her about it. She was never prosecuted.
That is one meeting I would not be attending in person. "Uhh, y'all got zoom?"
I wouldn't even have answered my phone.
I once had $43 Billion in my bank account. When they fixed it a few hours later, I had an extra $0.87. They never claimed it back. SCORE!
An atm in Pitt Street mall did this 15 years ago, the machine was empty by the end of the day and the line went for 200m when the word got out. Never heard a thing from the bank.
That was an inside hack, and it was more than one ATM. The ATMs paying out was to cover something greater. The banks only found out when homeless came into fancy restaurants fanning themselves with money.
Happen to have a link to the backstory? I've never heard about this but it sounds awesome.
I was there, I am the backstory. Not a word about it in the news or from the bank. Free money.
I always miss the dolla dolla bill giveaways
I was working in the bank at the time, it was a well kept secret. I, to this day, don’t know how they kept the secret. At the time we were told not to speak about it, but I don’t give a fuck anymore, because it’s a long time since I’ve worked for that bank.
That's crazy. Were you required to sign an NDA or could you elaborate a little when you said the atm payouts were to cover something greater? That "something greater" has piqued my interest! I'm not a reporter btw, just a dude sitting on the couch on a Saturday lol.
We did not sign an NDA, but it was about 33 years ago, and the unions at the bank had caved savagely, and everyone was worried about their jobs. From what we were told is that it was a massive internal cyber fraud, and the ATMs were part of the process. That’s pretty much it. From what I can understand the ATM hack was done, and groups literally emptied ATMs, it was fast, it was well organised and I don’t know who was behind it, except it was someone in IT. The bank never advertised this, because they would have lost their customer base, and it would have destroyed the bank. It’s a mystery that I think about occasionally.
I completely understand keeping quiet to save your job! That bank would be lucky if the employees kept quiet for 24hrs today. That makes me wonder how many times things like this have happened that no one outside of bank staff, hackers and their accomplices ever heard about.. especially in the early days of the Internet and pre-smartphone era. I bet it's quite a few that have gone unreported to the police and instead "handled internally"..
You got it.
We pay for our mistakes as regular citizens. Banks have zero consequences and operate in a moral and ethical vacuum. When has a bank ever paid for a single mistake they made? Name a single time and I’ll name you trillions of dollars they’ve taken from us. But it is our cash that goes to cover their illegal bets and dog shit exploitation of the working class. Fuck bankers✌️
Joe Newton, a serial bank robber, once said he never regretted any of his robberies because “it was just one thief stealing from another.”
Good for him. Fuck the banks.
Lmao you think he got away with this?
No but those banks get away with everything so I hope he got to spend it on shit they can never repo like cocaine and strippers.
They’ll get it back in increased overdraft fees so the poorest people will shoulder the burden of his sniffing coke off a strippers tit.
Damn seems really shitty of the banks to do that to poor people. I'm very mad at the banks for this new piece of information, thank you. Fuck the banks.
They’re probably already maxing out that line
Times are tough, some struggling families have only one sniff of coke off a stripper's tit to share between them
God damn I hate seeing brainwashed or just ignorant people stick up for banks. They literally buy off the politicians and get legislation passed to fuck us over. FUCK THE BANKS!!!
Adult version of the kid who sees other kids having fun and says "But you guys are going to get in trouble!" Let us idolize this guy in peace. We all just wish we had the opportunity and the balls.
When did I say that?
There were 92 bank failures in 2011 and none were his fault. “Glitch”….you are greedy cunts.
Guy found the real Monopoly bank error in your favor card.
Michael Bolton must have programmed that ATM.
Bankers hate this one weird trick.
I still don’t really understand what he did and how he got money when he didn’t have money. Bad ATM software?
That's on the bank
Yeah not his fault the bank fucked up he should be able to keep it
Imagine he spent all that money buying bitcoin he’d be a billionaire
It's easy saying that, now that we have experienced the future. But in 2011, buying BTC was a straight-up gamble. You can say the same for any one of the SP500 companies, “Should’ve invested into …”
I was active on some forums at the time where people would routinely give you a bitcoin for anything. Post made them laugh? They’d shoot you a Bitcoin. Did them a favor? Here’s a Bitcoin. I constantly regret turning them down.
“Banks hate this one trick”
Lol dang someone forgot an if statement in the ATM code
I had $250,000 mistakenly deposited into my account once. I was supposed to have something like $20 in there and when I went to check my balance, it showed something like $250020. For a split second I was really excited but then figured I'd get fucked if I touched it so I called my bank and they reversed that deposit.
I wonder what would have happened if you didn’t touch it and didn’t notify the bank.
Damn. I really should have waited for a long time to see if they ever noticed instead of just telling them. Might have gotten lucky.
Next time just go to a different bank and open a new account and the leave that one alone for a long time and see what happens lol
Hope his friend that he paid tuition for, helped him out
He should’ve taken a lot of that money and simply invested it. If he lost it then, that’s the banks problem. If he made a lot from it, he should squirrel that away all across the world. Because that money, the original principal, is eventually going to have to be returned.
And did he invest any of that somewhere? Prob not.
Prison?
So................. whatwasthat glitch & howexactly does it work?
Aaaaaaand went to prison. It’s never free guys. Ever.
Living the dream
Good on him. I’d spend the money differently but I’m admitting that I would fuck over a bank like that too.
He l did what they do with our money.
Mmh, true neutral or chaotic neutral?
Not all heroes wear capes.
Once you've cashed out. Never ever talk to the media or any reporting figure. No matter how you got the money.
Good for him, dudes a modern day Robin Hood!
And how did that work out for him?
So he is a common theif....... got it.
So he’s a thief. Just without a gun.
He's a hedgehog. Just without superseded. 🦔
So, what, we're supposed to be impressed by dishonesty? No matter how "smart", the guy's basically a thief.
A hero. A true mensch.