When processing a $100 refund for an Australian woman, the cryptocurrency trading platform Crypto.com sent her $10.5 million instead.
They didn't notice the mistake for seven months.
When processing a $100 refund for an Australian woman, the cryptocurrency trading platform Crypto.com sent her $10.5 million instead.
They didn't notice the mistake for seven months.
The company paid Hollywood star Matt Damon to be in a Super Bowl ad with the slogan "fortune favors the brave."
Seven months later, in December 2021, it found out that it had mistakenly given the fortune to a woman in Melbourne named Thevamanogari Manivel.
In Australia, Crypto.com is known as Foris GFS. By mistake, Manivel's account number was put into the payment amount field, so the company gave him $10.5 million instead of a $100 refund.
This year, the company went to court in Victoria, Australia. In February, the court put a freeze on Manivel's Commonwealth Bank account, but most of the money had already been moved to other accounts, which were also later frozen.
The court heard that $1.35 million of the money was used to buy a four-bedroom home in Melbourne's north, Craigieburn, in February.
The home was then given to Manivel's sister, Thilagavathy Gangadory, who lives in Malaysia.
The freezing orders couldn't be given to Gangadory because she never answered the emails from Crypto.com's lawyers.
The only communication that was given to the court was an email that said "received, thank you" to Manivel's lawyers.
The court heard that Manivel's lawyers told Crypto.com that Gangadory was "seeking legal advice."
As a result, Crypto.com was given a default judgment that told Gangadory to sell the property as soon as possible.
The money from the sale, plus interest of $27,369.64 and costs, would go to Crypto.com.
Crypto.com didn't say anything about the case while it was in court.Due to the slump in the cryptocurrency market, Crypto.com said in June that it was firing 260 of its workers.
But the Verge said that the company had laid off many more people without telling the rest of the staff.
The cryptocurrency market went down just a few months after the AFL and Crypto.com announced a five-year deal for Crypto.com to be the "official cryptocurrency exchange and trading platform for the AFL and the AFLW."
In May, Crypto.com said that it was still fully on board with the deal.
A spokesperson said, "We have a lot of money, and these are multiyear contracts that will continue to be very important to our mission to speed up the world's move to cryptocurrency."