$50 billion dollars mistakenly deposited into Darren James Baton Rouge family’s bank account. But how?
If it only happened in your bank account too …
A Louisiana family has told of having $50 billion accidentally deposited in their bank account, making them the 25th-richest people on Earth — for less than four days.
Baton Rouge real estate agent Darren James, 47, told Fox how he came home earlier this month and his shocked wife held up her bank balance info on her phone, telling him, ‘Look at this!’
‘Open it up and we’ve got $50 billion in our account,’ James told the media outlet of the family’s sudden new riches.
‘And all we were thinking was, ‘Who’s going to be knocking at our door?’ Because we don’t know anybody with that type of money,’ he said.
‘I was a billionaire for four days,’
At first James wondered if the sum was the result of a ‘rich uncle’.
‘It was a great feeling while it was there, to see that many zeros in your account. I mean, I’m part of the one-comma club, not the three-comma club,’ the bemused realtor said.
James and his wife, called Chase Bank as soon as they saw the cash there on Saturday, June 12, but the money remained there until some point on the following Tuesday.
‘I was a billionaire for four days,’ he told Fox. ‘It was a cool feeling, even though you couldn’t do anything with it,’ he said.
‘We knew it wasn’t ours. We didn’t earn it, so we couldn’t do anything with it. We couldn’t spend it — that would be theft,’ said James, who used to work in law enforcement.
James said he heard as many as 150 other people across the US had mystery deposits at the same time, saying it has concerned them about the security of their account.
The episode follows that of Largo, Florida woman, Julia Yonkowski, finding nearly $1 billion in her Chase account when she went to withdraw just $20 from an ATM.
Ongoing technical glitches?
Despite her genuine surprise, Yonkowski sought to have the funds immediately returned as she feared potential repercussions. Funds were removed from the Largo woman’s account within 3 days. No immediate reason was offered as to the apparent glitch in that case.
Chase Bank told Fox that the issue with the Jameses’ balance has since been resolved.
‘We had a technical glitch over a week ago impacting a limited number of accounts,’ a company spokesperson told Fox in a statement.
‘The issue has been resolved and those accounts are now showing accurate balances.’
