Consumerist – by Mary Beth Quirk
Sorry about that headline, I’ve just been really tired and not sleeping well and anyway — where was my bank account when a snoozing clerk accidentally transferred about $300 million accidentally? Oh, right. It wasn’t in Germany, which is where our dozing dude made his rather large mistake. It only took a second for him to fall asleep and leave his finger on the keyboard, turning a 2 into well, 222222222…
The erroneous transmission of €222,222,222.22 instead of €64.20 led to a related bit of controversy, reports the BBC, that’s just getting cleared up now, a year after the incident.
Apparently his supervisor didn’t catch the error and was then allegedly fired for failing to check the transaction and allowing it to go through. A fellow coworker noticed the mistake later and corrected it.
Although the supervisor was accused of not looking over the clerk’s work, a German labor court said she should’ve only be reprimanded and not given the boot.
She’d checked a total of 812 documents that day for mistakes, and as such, the judges ruled that there’d been no malicious intent on her behalf. The court says her employers must reinstate her employment.
Maybe my bankers need fewer naps, huh? Because I sure could use a couple extra million. Perhaps it’s time for a move to Germany.
German bank supervisor unfairly fired over ‘sleep error’ [BBC News]
Good one diggerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!
Robbing people all day long can really knock you out, and who cares about a few million counterfeit dollars (or pounds) flying this way or that?
We’re awash in worthless money, so what’s a few billion here or there?