Couple who became billionaires overnight found disappointing truth behind $50,000,000,000 in their account
Liv Bridge
Featured Image Credit: YouTube/Louisiana First News
A couple who became billionaires at random overnight soon found out the disappointing truth behind the $50,000,000,000 deposited to their account.
Darren James, a real estate agent from Baton Rouge, and his wife were checking in on their finances one Saturday in June 2021 when they were stunned to see $50 billion staring back at them in their Chase Bank account.
The 47-year-old, from Louisiana, told Fox how his wife flashed the sum at him from her phone, shouting: "Look at this!"
James recalled: "And all we were thinking was, ‘Who’s going to be knocking at our door?’ Because we don’t know anybody with that type of money."
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"It was a great feeling while it was there, to see that many zeros in your account. I mean, I’m part of the one-comma club, not the three-comma club," he laughed, referring to having thousands of dollars as opposed to billions.
But to keep a clear conscience, the couple immediately called Chase Bank to report the cash influx, adding to CNN that it was clearly not just an ordinary mistake but a monumental one.
"That’s not like a one zero error or a two zero error, that’s somebody that fell asleep on the keyboard error," James said. "I was excited for sure. Really surprised how it got there and wondered if I had a rich uncle that gave it to me.”
While James admitted he got carried away dreaming about the passing of an estranged but incredibly wealthy relative, which would have left them richer than Nike co-founder Phil Knight in the Forbes billionaires list, the family were disappointed to learn the very simple truth: that it was just a highly unusual error.
In a matter of four days, Chase Bank reportedly restored the couple's account to its correct balance.
"I was a billionaire for four days," James told Fox. "It was a cool feeling, even though you couldn’t do anything with it."
Paying credit to his 'moral compass', James said he never considered spending even a dime of the money they had received, stating to do so would have amounted to theft.
"My moral compass only goes one way and that’s the correct way," he said. "There’s a big difference between morality and legality. Honesty and good moral character immediately kicked in, we can’t do anything with the money. I didn’t earn it, it’s not ours to spend."
James went on to jibe: "Unless it was a rich uncle or one of those emails I probably responded to from a Saudi Arabian prince who promised to give me $50 billion, that’s a different story."
But despite the buzz of being billionaires for a short while, the family said they were left in the dark over how the fiasco happened and if the account had been compromised in the mega error.
James added: "We’re still trying to figure out what happened, why it happened, how it happened, but we know we aren’t the only ones this happened to.
"The concern is whether my account was compromised, and the bank hasn’t even called me. We haven’t heard anything from anyone."
According to CNN, Chase Bank did acknowledge the mistake, but gave a different timeframe for the error and when it was fixed.
Chase Bank spokeswoman Amy Bonitatibus told the outlet: "We had a technical glitch a couple weeks ago impacting a limited number of accounts. The issue was resolved one day later and all accounts are showing accurate balances."