Renton man gets millions _ briefly _ in computer glitch

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Renton man gets millions _ briefly _ in computer glitch

The Associated Press 09/22/99 3:57 AM Eastern

SEATTLE (AP) -- A Renton man who went to bed with less than $700 in his account woke up Tuesday with more than $14 million, at least temporarily.

Jason Griffith got a shocking receipt when he used a cash machine for his Boeing Employees Credit Union account early in the morning. The available balance was listed at more than $4 million.

He called the automated teller and found the balance had grown even higher, to $14,203,911.75.

"Yeah, I can say I was a millionaire for a day," he said.

The problem could be traced to the East Coast, KOMO-TV reported. Floods brought by Hurricane Floyd fouled up connections, turning some Mastercard debit transactions into deposits.

Griffith discovered that his over-the-phone payment for two tickets to a Ben Folds Five alternative rock concert had been recorded as a $14 million deposit instead.

A credit union representative said the network service provider in New Jersey solved the problem by late Tuesday afternoon and corrected Griffith's account.

Questions? Comments? Suggestions? We welcome your feedback.

)1999 Oregon Live LLC

http://flash.oregonlive.com/cgi-bin/or_nview.pl?/home1/wire/AP/Stream-Parsed/OREGON_NEWS/o1805_PM_WA--AccountMistake

-- Homer Beanfang (Bats@inbellfry.com), September 22, 1999

Answers

pesky little digits

So... just how DOES a hurricane on the east coast foul up "connections" and turn a phoned in debit into a massive credit? Was this a phone problem? An ATM problem? A Mastercard problem? Or a Credit union problem? And why did the *wrong* deposit change overnight from "over $4million" to over $14 million? And was Mr. Griffith the only lucky customer to win the Floyd Sweepstakes? Did anyone perhaps have credits turn into debits? And... if you phone in an order.. or do it electronically, and get "garbage out" like this.. how do you PROVE what you originally did?

connections... connections...

100 days.. threads on the Emperior's coat are starting to unravel.

-- Linda (lwmb@psln.com), September 22, 1999.


For other amusing tales of banking errors causing nonsensical overdrafts and impossible riches try the ever-interesting Risks forum here, here and here, to name but a few. You could almost come away with the impression the banks screw things up and then look for a computer to blame...

-- J (j@j.j), September 22, 1999.

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