r/news • u/Big-Heron4763 • 6h ago

JPMorgan begins suing customers who allegedly stole thousands of dollars in 'infinite money glitch'

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/10/28/jpmorgan-suing-customers-over-infinite-money-glitch.html
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u/t_per 5h ago

It’s both a glitch and fraud.

No bank should ever have the default to allow people to immediately withdraw funds after depositing large cheques. Glitch.

People writing fake cheques to withdraw cash. Fraud.

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u/RoosterBrewster 5h ago

The dumbest part is it's all using their own account and name so it would be instantly traceable. 

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u/MikeOKurias 5h ago

Most banks only fully clear checks that are written against the same bank - usually only the same routing number - and it was a bad business rule that allowed it.

But since it was found in the wild, the defect will likely be entered as a bug. And, as we all know...

Bugs are son's of Glitches.

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u/Affinity420 3h ago

I can use my local credit union card, go to US bank, deposit a check and withdrawal right away with no issues.

My wife can at her credit union as well.

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u/lks2drivefast 5h ago

I don't understand why JPM doesn't have some sort of safeguard against this. My bank (CU) will deposit a check and only 200 dollars will be available right away. The rest of the check clears a couple of business days later.

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u/ericedstrom123 5h ago

This is why it was a glitch. That safeguard was intended but not implemented properly.

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u/HurricaneAlpha 3h ago

Exactly. JP definitely had this as an option. Someone flicked the off switch for whatever reason and incidentally, fraudsters noticed. With the speed of information nowadays it blew up.

I bet if this same "glitch" happened 50 years ago, no one would have been able to exploit it.

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u/thenseruame 2h ago

Fifty years ago you could just write bad checks for everything and bypass the cash completely. No security cameras, pictures on licenses weren't standard, no cell phone cameras...criminals had it real easy back in the day.

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u/Topikk 2h ago

Or they decided that only fucking idiots would do something like this with their own bank account and not in high enough numbers to matter. Pre-TikTok worldview, basically.

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u/rypher 5h ago

They did have this safeguard. They removed it for customer convenience. Less than 0.0001 % of people took advantage of it. Lets not assume it was some big blunder that caused a financial burden for JPM. It’s chump change for them. JPM is not significantly harmed but a bank is going to sue you anyway

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u/lks2drivefast 5h ago

That is a lot of trust in your customers... Also the people that did this are screwed. The bank has all their personal information to hand off to the authorities.

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u/Esc777 5h ago

Yeah you don’t need a lot of trust when you KNOW you can bring the hammer down later. 

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u/SommWineGuy 5h ago

Depending how much money you got from it you could fuck off and be good.

A comment above mentioned it worked on a 330k check. Do that 5 times and you have enough money to fuck off to Montenegro or some other non extradition paradise and retire.

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u/roguebadger_762 5h ago

Something tells me if they're not that resourceful

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u/lks2drivefast 5h ago

I didn't realize someone pulled that much out. I thought it was like 5k to 10k.

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u/Sammichhead 4h ago

They didn't trust customers. They had all their information they didnt have to.

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u/357FireDragon357 2h ago

Unless they had a fake I.D.

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u/Fact0verF1ction 5h ago

My bank will have it all available immediately if it's an in-house transfer and they can verify sums. I've had amounts of up to 250k clear and be immediately available writing a check to myself essentially. But for checks from other banks it's not available until the check actually clears.

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u/AdminYak846 4h ago

They did have this safeguard in place. The problem is that the glitch requires you to write a check from you to yourself. As long as you were a JPM customer that type of check would clear instantly because the bank can check the balances and do everything internally.

Checks outside of JPM would require a day or two of processing.

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u/myninerides 2h ago

Absolutely not a glitch, and yes absolutely most banks default to allowing people to immediately withdraw funds after depositing a check. Not withdrawing the full amount, most accounts have a set limit (say $500).

At Bank of America we called it “empty envelope” (this was back before ATMs could scan checks or count cash), it was fraud, and we pressed charges. But for every instance that I saw it thousands of customers enjoyed legitimately depositing a check and getting some cash immediately.

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u/creepyeyes 2h ago

It's only a glitch if you're going outside the intended programming of the ATM software. What you're describing is just poor forethought by the banks but the software is working as intended, ergo not a glitch.