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Crypto.com accidentally sent a woman $7.2 million instead of $68
Manivel Thevamanogari received the sum back in May 2021 but the company didn’t catch on until seven months later.
Correction: A previous version of this article stated figures in AUD instead of USD. The USD figures are $68, $7.2 million, and $890,000.
If around $7 million was deposited into your bank account and no one was around to disprove or dispute the (obviously accidental transaction) did it ever really exist? In the case of Thevamanogari Manivel, this hypothetical came to fruition after Crypto.com, the Singaporean-based cryptocurrency exchange, accidentally sent her $7.2 million while trying to issue a $68 refund.
According to 7News, a local Australian news outlet, the blunder took place back in May 2021, and was not discovered until seven months later, after the company happened upon what must have been a glaring hole in its balance sheet during an end-of-year audit in December 2021.
Not to let opportunity go to waste, Manivel moved the cash infusion into a joint account with her sister, Thilagavathy Gangadory, using about $890,000 to acquire a five-bedroom property in a suburb of Melbourne. Accordingly, Crypto.com filed a lawsuit in the Victorian Supreme Court against Manivel and her sister with the court deeming back in May that the money should be returned.
Well this complicates things — Because part of the funds had already been used on a piece of real estate, Manivel is being ordered to sell the home and return whatever is made back to the namesake of the Los Angeles Laker’s home arena.
The accidental transfer was initiated after an employee got a bit too liberal with the amount of decimal points used for what should have been a small refund, in addition to typing in an account number under the payment section.
Around the end of last year, and leading up to the Super Bowl in February, Crypto.com began expanding its use of celebrity-happy advertisements as part of a $100 million global marketing initiative. While it’s not clear the exact amount that Matt Damon, and others, made for becoming the faces of Crypto, it wouldn’t be outlandish to say that compensation is less than the sum Manivel received.
According to Watcher News, Gangadory failed to appear in court and her absence was taken as a sign of admittance, with the judgement document noting that “the effect of not filing an appearance is that the allegations in the statement of claim are taken to be admitted.” The case will return to court in October.
