alt Hacker NewsAn acquaintance of mine was accidentally wired about $100k when it was supposed to be $5k. Before it could be reversed, they moved accounts and immediately bought a one way flight out of country. They then changed all socials and handles. They are now ignoring all court documents and are on track to get a default judgement against them.
Their rationale? “It’s mine, they owed me this”. They are 100% convinced that they are in the right, not just that they can keep it but that they actually intended to send them this to begin with. I get it $100k isn’t nothing but they’re also throwing their life away for less than what they used to make a year in salary.
People do weird things when given sudden access to money or power.
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I had a client send me an ACH that was legitimately a fat finger extra zero. For me, it was a "lot" of truck payments. For them, it was a rounding error that they were unaware of until I reached out and let them know about their mistake. I couldn't wait to make it right with them because it bothered me so much because suddenly I had a pile of money that was theirs and not mine.
> An acquaintance of mine was accidentally wired about $100k when it was supposed to be $5k. Before it could be reversed, they moved accounts and immediately bought a one way flight out of country. They then changed all socials and handles. They are now ignoring all court documents and are on track to get a default judgement against them.
$95k does not seems like enough money to totally upend your life like that for.
> People do weird things when given sudden access to money or power.
It's more that money and power enable you to be who you really are, and amplify your worst traits if you're lacking self-awareness.
There are many people who are rich/wealthy and/or powerful and they're decent individuals living relatively ordinary lives. You don't read about most of them because they're "normal".
> they moved accounts and immediately bought a one way flight out of country
To be fair this is smarter than like 95% of white-collar criminals.
> People do weird things when given sudden access to money or power.
Given your story its not sounds like this is power grab. More like they actually on spectrum and have some mental issues on top this. Or had mental breakdown because something happened before that money arrived.
Situations when people do something weird, bad or just plain evil for money and power are usually logical. E.g people think they got access to more money they percieve they can earn in next decade, or ever, something that settles them for life.
Earning more than $100,000 and throwing everything away for $95,000 only make sense if you are terminally ill. Or if it was never your real identify in first place and its well planned scam.
Hell, I used to know a guy who did this to steal a monitor from work. Went all the way down to Panama or something.
> immediately bought a one way flight out of country
Is this referring to a foreign national who can leave at any time?
> They are 100% convinced that they are in the right, not just that they can keep it but that they actually intended to send them this to begin with.
They quite clearly do not believe that. If they did, they wouldn't need to go into hiding or leave the country.
This reminds me of the kids in MR. Deeds.
Kid 1: What are you going to do with your $20,000
Kid2: quit school
Homeless man: good idea, school is for fools!!