The Australian online newspaper Ticker News, today told a very curious story. In fact, it reports that a Melbourne woman received $ 10.5 million from Crypto.com by accident. The woman had requested a $ 100 "refund", but the exchange accidentally sent her $ 10.5 million.
The woman who received more than $ 10 million from Crypto.com
The woman hid the incident from Crypto.com, and it took the exchange more than seven months to realize it. The problem occurred in May 2021, while the error was later discovered only shortly before Christmas thanks to a company audit.
Together with her sister, in fact, the woman with the money received bought a villa in Craigieburn worth several million dollars. When the exchange tried to recover the money, it had already been moved and spent.
At this point, the exchange's lawyers filed a lawsuit in the Australian Supreme Court against the two sisters to try to recover the money. The judge has now ordered the property to be sold, and the remaining money to be returned.
During the trial, the court found that the company accidentally entered the bank account number in the payment field, instead of the $ 100 amount.
As far as we know, this is a more unique than rare case, both for the amount of the amount, and above all for the fact that it took seven months to realize it. In the end, however, the woman would probably have done better to report the problem to the exchange right away, so as to avoid legal proceedings and the loss of the proceeds.
The problem of P2P transactions
On the other hand, errors of this kind are not at all rare when it comes to direct P2P transactions between individuals, i.e. that do not go through a service provided by a third party such as an exchange.
The fact is that, unlike this affair which involves well-defined and easily identifiable entities, P2P transactions can instead also take place between unidentifiable subjects. Moreover, they are irreversible, so in the case of errors concerning P2P transactions of which the recipient is not identifiable, the chances of getting back the funds sent incorrectly is almost nil.
Leaning on third-party companies has numerous disadvantages, including for example that of losing funds in the event of bankruptcy, but sometimes it also has some advantages, although in this case it was the company itself that benefited from it.
Finally, it should be emphasized that the transaction in question was made in dollars, i.e. in fiat currency, and not in cryptocurrencies, but even in this case it was irreversible due to the fact that the money had already been spent when the exchange tried to recover it.