Imagine this: you’ve barely made it to the end of the month, and finally, your paycheck arrives.
You check your banking app, only to be stunned when you see an amount much larger than you expected—around 330 times more, in fact. What would you do?
Personally, I’d be too scared of repercussions and would immediately inform payroll about the mistake. However, not everyone would respond this way.
In Chile, an employee faced this exact situation, but instead of notifying the finance team, he chose a different path.
The unnamed worker was employed by Consorcio Industrial de Alimentos (Cial), a Chilean company known for producing cold cut meats. His usual salary was 500,000 pesos ($525).
However, due to an error, the company transferred 165,398,851 Chilean pesos ($173,668.79) to him instead.
The human resources department at Cial quickly realized the mistake and attempted to retrieve the money. The employee agreed to visit his bank the next day to correct the issue, as reported by Dario Financiero.
Yet, when the following day came, the employee didn’t turn up at work and could not be contacted by his employers despite their persistent calls, texts, and WhatsApp messages.
The employee effectively vanished, although he did have a lawyer reach out to confirm his official resignation from the job.
Clearly, this individual wasn’t as concerned about the consequences as I would be.
Cial, however, did not give up easily and initiated legal proceedings to recover the funds from their ex-employee.
“He was informed and clarified that this money did not correspond to the payment of any service,” stated Chilean legal documents, according to Diario Financiero.
The company accused him of misappropriation of funds, hoping to reclaim the lost money. But six months after the initial incident, news agency IOL reported in December 2022 that authorities had yet to locate the former employee.
With the equivalent of 330 paychecks in his account, the ex-employee could potentially lay low for a long time. One can only hope he used the money wisely.