Banks Blame Each Other For Erroneous $10 Million Account Balance

When a woman in Australia checked her bank account balance earlier this week, she was surprised to see that she had $10 million available in her account. (That’s worth about $7.8 million US dollars, if you’re wondering.) She wondered whether it was an error or a prank, so she called her bank instead of running off on an international spending spree. The bank told her that it was no error: she was an unwitting millionaire.

This was surprising news to her, so she tried to figure out what was going on, ultimately taking her story to news outlets to get some attention. Her receipt inexplicably showed that she had a $7,500 overdraft at the same time that she had an account balance of $10 million, which shouldn’t be possible.

The $10 million figure, it turns out, is how much money the customer could in theory spend for her account type. That’s not a line of credit or her actual balance, just the spending cap if she did happen to have that much money.

Ultimately, her bank, ANZ, determined that the confusing limit came from a miscommunication between their system and ATMs from other banks. That’s not a very entertaining explanation, but the customer says that bankers have contacted her to explain the error.

Gold Coast’s momentary millionaire won’t have to repay overdraft [Gold Coast Bulletin]

by Laura Northrup via Consumerist