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The bank lent me $2m so I spent it on strippers and cars
- astannard 10y agoand then wasted the rest
- canuckintime 10y agothat's the Best perspective
- retube 10y ago"I spent half my money on gambling, alcohol and wild women. The other half I wasted.”
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- cup 10y agoIt's hard to be sympathetic to banks when you know if you make a financial mistake they'll never compensate you. The guy was immoral. But in the world of banking that doesn't matter.
- sqldba 10y ago"I know a lot of other young people would have done the same." Only scum. FFS it was theft. There was no moral high ground here! What a dipshit.
- sctb 10y agoCalling people scum and dipshits is not what qualifies as civil discussion. Please don't do this. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- jlebrech 10y agothey weren't charging him interest? if so, why waste money on things that don't yield a return on investment. you could day trade and just put it back in the account. and that way you probably wouldn't get arrested.
- IshKebab 10y agoI'd buy some gold bars, hide them and say I spent it on strippers and drugs. It's not like you'd keep receipts for that.
- bryanlarsen 10y agoThat would have crossed the line from being just immoral to being illegal. Not buying the gold bars, but failing to disclose & surrender them during court proceedings.
- jlebrech 10y agoit would be pretty obvious when the transactions were checked too, most of them would be for the value at the time of a gold bar.
- patrickdavey 10y agoI would set up a trust in the British virgin islands or Cayman's, transfer the money out there and maybe set up another trust to transfer into if that one was discovered. He was spending the money on strippers and cocaine, no receipts required. Not that I'd do it mind, but I think that'd be a way to get away with it. Reasonable ROI even if you do go to jail for a year or two ;) Read "treasure islands" sometime. Fascinating.
- fastball 10y agoI'd buy an island in a nation that doesn't have an extradition treaty with Australia, buy a tonne of gold, and move to my island. Whenever I need more money, I sell some gold. Then I figure out a way to make it so that I'm no longer doing anything illegal, and wait for the statute of limitations to kick in. Probably I'd have my lawyer in Australia declare bankruptcy or something.
- devoply 10y agoApparently he had all his fun in 2 months.
- mbil 10y agoTwo years > July 2010 to August 2012: Makes more than 50 withdrawals, apparently totalling $1,988,535.25
- coldtea 10y ago2 years. More than most people of his age (or much older ages) get to have.
- bryanlarsen 10y agoFrom the story, the first few months were legitimate, and then the next 12 months were just mortgage payments and only the last few months were crazy partying.
- 1011_1101 10y agoAbout a year or so from now there will be a "Hollywood-based-on-a-true-story"-Adaptation of this.
- teddyh 10y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blank_Check_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blank_Check_(film)
- pcr0 10y agoNice to see the turnaround from strippers and cocaine to attending law school and helping other people out.
- kelvin0 10y agoWell he simply switched groups he was 'helping': he used to be helping Strippers and Coke dealers (financially), now he's helping others with his newfound law insights and retelling of this story.
- tonyedgecombe 10y agoThose others might well be strippers and coke dealers.
- tptacek 10y agoThere's no ethics requirement in Australia for lawyers? Wouldn't it be tough to get admitted to the bar in the US after a stunt like this?
- kw71 10y agoHis conviction is quashed.
- rayiner 10y agoIn the US, you have to disclose every arrest, criminal proceedings, etc. along with all debts, so this would come out. And they can can deny you for things that aren't convictions. That said bar examiners like a good human interest story as much as anyone else. A former bank robber got admitted to the Washington bar last year after he started doing Supreme Court appellate work while behind bars.
- selectodude 10y agoIf he had committed a crime, that would be one thing. Taking advantage of a free spigot of money though, that would get him fast tracked as far as the bar is concerned.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- dugditches 10y agoListening to it on the radio, the guy just seemed so apathetic. That it seemed almost like a Satire skit. He bought several expensive cars, spent time in Thailand, and started buying celebrity memorabilia and art? I wonder if people like this get caught because of their blatant disregard for consequences. And that there's lots of people who fall into similar mistakes/loop holes but are just very reserved and try to fly low.
- coldtea 10y ago>He bought several expensive cars, spent time in Thailand, and started buying celebrity memorabilia and art? Why not? He had a nice experience, and even avoided any long term jail sentence. What's not to like?
- mathgeek 10y agoMorally, there are several things not to like. Of course, this is arguably no more or less morally sound than someone who legally games the financial system and buys the same lifestyle. Lots of grey areas, I suppose. I keep wanting to compare it to tech firms that profit off chiseling away at our privacy using social and game theory, but I'm not completely convinced that the two systems are similar enough to warrant it.
- user5994461 10y agoI'm not sure I understood the story. Is it that he would transfer money from his account, and it always succeeded even if there was no funds???
- fuzzy2 10y agoYes. This is called Overdraft: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overdraft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overdraft It’s a form of credit granted to you by the bank. It’s usually limited. You wouldn’t usually get a $2m credit either. :)
- sflcnetwork 10y agoIt's unbelievable how the bank didn't notice for that long. That goes to show the power of what a sysadmin at a bank can have, take money and cover his/her tracks. Unfortunately for this guy he was in no such position.
- apapli 10y agoThey definitely would have noticed, but anyone who cared at the bank was a beneficiary - more loans equals higher commissions. I think the problem here is that the bank employees saw no reason to intervene, even though they should have, as clearly the guy needed help (responsible lending practices here in Oz ignored). I expect that is why his conviction was quashed.
- raesene6 10y agoI didn't see any indication in the article that the bank knew, and as there is no way this loan would pass their audit checks, I really doubt anyone got commission for it. My guess would be a mistake in a system and a line of credit got attached to the wrong account. Should they have better checks in place, sure, but there's nothing in the article to suggest they knowingly lent him the cash.
- apapli 10y agoPossibly. I still believe this issue is best looked at through a bank culture lens rather than a technical one. Although I'll agree with you that the solution will require changes most likely to both.
- mathgeek 10y ago> That goes to show the power of what a sysadmin at a bank can have, take money and cover his/her tracks. The regulation and audit requirements of the banking system mean that you can't cover your tracks forever. The accountants and auditors will catch up eventually.
- mempko 10y agoA loan is an asset on a bank's books. I think it's obvious why they don't care until, well, you know.
- scandox 10y agoThe big story for me here is: don't rely on your lawyers. Not unless they cost enough to rely on. Form a strong idea of your own case and your own defense. Even if you're not representing yourself.
- yomly 10y agoYep this is my takeaway from the story. I will not be sad when AI automates away the majority of the legal industry. Really really terrifying that one's access to justice is dependent on their access to finances. Luckily this guy was smart enough to actually represent himself - credit to him for that!
- Pigo 10y agoThis has been my reason for being against the death penalty for many years. It's hard to justify when the OJ's of the world get a pass due to wealth or celebrity. I never thought of AI being used in this capacity. Seems like we'd live in The Day The Earth Stood Still world, giving the automatons the jurisdiction to meat out justice.
- bluejekyll 10y agoHmm. This is actually an interesting application for AI. Is anyone working on this? There is a huge amount of case law that could be entered into the corpus.
- mdpopescu 10y agoIBM's Watson is reading a ton of case law, as far as I know. Clio [1] also has some articles about AI and laws, if I recall correctly. [1] https://www.clio.com/ https://www.clio.com/
- saint_fiasco 10y agoDoNotPay is a chatbot that can help people with simple legal cases like appealing parking tickets. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/28/chatbot-ai-lawyer-donotpay-parking-tickets-london-new-york https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/28/chatbot-a...
- rsp1984 10y agoI'm surprised that the article isn't answering the obvious question and that nobody here is asking it either: Did he have to pay back the 2 million?
- restalis 10y agoINAL, but I assume that the bank had to have an explicit agreement for that credit in order to have now a solid legal position. Considering that and that to get these money back they now have to build a case against a lawyer, it's safe to assume that they won't try to do it. They face a costly legal battle and are in a weak position, which means a high risk of just loosing even more money.
- dalore 10y agoIf you borrow $2k from the bank and can't pay it back, that's your problem. If you borrow $2 million from the bank and can't pay it back, that's the bank's problem.
- jdavis703 10y agoIt's actually called fraud, at least in the US, and will be investigated by the Secret Service. If you experience such a windfall in your account, seek written permission from the bank before spending any of the money.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- verbify 10y agoHe didn't find the windfall - they just gave him a large line of credit. You could claim it was fraudulent because he didn't plan on paying them back, but it's not the same as suddenly finding money in your account.
- Bartweiss 10y agoYep, significant difference. I've seen several stories of people prosecuted for spending improper deposits, but presumably a loan - where risk is implied and defaulting is an understood practice - is a different beast.
- adekok 10y agoThe article doesn't way why he was found not guilty, but I'll make my guess. He did nothing to defraud the bank or mislead it. He simply had access to a large line of credit, and used it. If the bank wants it's money back, that's a civil matter, not a criminal one. It's their responsibility to ask for it back. This reeks of incompetence on the part of the bank, followed by outright malice. They put an innocent guy in jail in order to pretend that it was his fault that they screwed up.
- wheelerwj 10y agoIt does say: I was acquitted a few weeks ago. As far as the law is concerned in Australia at the moment I had no legal obligation to inform the Bank of what was going on. I wouldn't do it again - it wasn't worth a couple of good months with the strippers and some cocaine. The judge said I was dishonest, but we don't live in a society where moral wrongs result in people being locked up behind bars and their liberty taken away from them.
- saycheese 10y ago>> "moral wrongs result in people being locked up behind bars and their liberty taken away from them" Imagine what the world would be like if this was true.
- virmundi 10y agoNo one would get locked up because there is no such thing as morality? There are only ethical systems setup for a certain goal. At least that is true if there is no deity that a) tells us anything, and/or b) that gives a shit about what it said.
- arise 10y agoSaudi Arabia?
- rubberstamp 10y agoNot even close
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- dgreensp 10y ago> I was just unlucky I guess that it happened to me. People like this who have no sense of personal responsibility are an evil in the world. He spends millions of dollars of other people's money, declares bankruptcy (presumably), and when his actions are deemed dishonest and immoral, though not technically illegal, he acts like that's just name-calling and gets right back up on his high horse. Remind you of any Presidents-elect? I expected better of HN commenters. Remember when we had a spirited discussion about people defaulting on their student loans and blaming society for making them take huge loans they can't pay back? This situation lacks any of the nuance of that one.
- yequalsx 10y agoA loan is a two party relationship and both parties have responsibilities. Also there are known consequences to default. Defaulting on a loan has nothin to do with morality as far as I'm concerned. If you are fine with the consequences of default then do so. It's not immoral as everyone knows the risk/consequences.
- alogray 10y agoSure -- but typically the result of defaulting on a loan is not debtor's prison unless you happen to still be living in 1820.
- yequalsx 10y agoYes. I was commenting to what the parent commenter wrote. He/she seems to think strategic defaults are immoral.
- dgreensp 10y agoI don't think whether or not everyone knows the consequences is relevant. You can work out the purely legal or administrative downsides (to you) of lots of things.
- yequalsx 10y ago
- kosei 10y agoI don't understand how you could take out $2m and expect not to go to jail or to have any consequences for your actions. That blows my mind.
- mikeash 10y agoThey gave it to him. It was a mistake, but you're allowed to accept a gift like that. I think he was deeply in the wrong to do so, but not in a "go to jail" sense of wrong.
- ben0x539 10y ago> My six months behind bars gave me a unique perspective on jail. I suspect it's really not all that unique.
- bluejekyll 10y agoWell, it's unique in that most people still don't spend that time in jail, and then on top of that he was able to get out without any criminal record. It did give him enough experience to find something worth doing with his life.
- learc83 10y agoIt's pretty unique to people who are studying to be lawyers because most people with 6 months behind bars are convicted criminals (who usually can't become lawyers).
- crimsonalucard 10y agoI would've put that money in the sp500. Depending on how long he could hold on to that credit he would've made a lot of profit that he could keep.
- vxNsr 10y agoI feel like his main crime may have been tax evasion... Luckily neither the prosecutor nor the judge noticed...
- TheCoelacanth 10y agoMoney that you borrow isn't income because you have to pay it back later. Now, if the loan gets forgiven, then he would owe taxes on it.
- BeetleB 10y agoReminds me of something that happened back when I still had a landline. They incorrectly billed us over $2000. We argued with them and they reversed the charges - twice. So now my balance showed a credit of $2000. I kept calling them back and they said they couldn't see anything wrong on my account. This went on for months. A number of times the person on the phone said "Well just don't tell anyone!". I asked for that in writing and then they sighed and said "I'll put a note in for someone to look at it." I was blown away by how many friends of mine got mad at me for trying to fix it. Does anyone really think this would go unnoticed forever?
- tlrobinson 10y agoWouldn't the optimal (not morally) move be to just set aside the money you might eventually have to pay back?
- BeetleB 10y agoWe had to set money aside because all our bills showed a credit - we weren't making thousands of dollars in phone calls every month. What everyone was telling me to do was to make lots of expensive long distance calls because I had the credit. I didn't want to have to pay that back once they fixed it.
- pavel_lishin 10y agoExcept he'd have to set aside either two grand right away, or have to very carefully track his phone line usage and keep a separate account. I think I would have closed the account, and either waited for them to realize what was going on before Accounting cut a $2k check. A credit on an account is bits in a computer; a check going out to a customer is real money coming out of a bank account.
- 2almalki 10y agowell, did they find out in the end? lol
- BeetleB 10y ago
- CPLX 10y agoWhat a shame he was young and irresponsible when this happened. It could have been a truly epic story had he done something interesting like take out the money, invest it in something like income producing real property or a cashflow positive business, and then been able to come out ahead when judgement day inevitably came along by handing back the money owed.
- pavel_lishin 10y agoI would imagine that most people who would allocate their money that way wouldn't take the risk of continually drawing on a magic line of credit.
- morgante 10y agoI absolutely would. I'd probably call them to get some documentation that I'd tried to rectify the situation, but if they still want to keep giving me a line of credit I'd be buying up assets like crazy. You'd be a fool to turn down unlimited zero-interest credit.
- pavel_lishin 10y ago> You'd be a fool to turn down unlimited zero-interest credit. Maybe, but this guy served half a year in jail. You could probably do better if you could show the court that you're not a hapless kid buying sports cars, but it seems rather risky.
- morgante 10y agoIt's not clear how much effort he went into corroborating with the bank. I'd certainly at least call them to confirm before spending the money.
- CPLX 10y agoIndeed. Or to be even more specific, financially responsible people never find out what happens when they draw their checking account below the zero balance line.
- lucidrains 10y agoStories like these make me a disbeliever of basic income.
- scott_karana 10y agoHah, fair! Admittedly, there is also some different psychology at play: this guy knew it was a temporary windfall, and wouldn't last. Even if he was dumb enough to blow his basic income, and end up on the streets for the rest of the year, he probably wouldn't make the same mistake twice ;)
- netizzio 10y agoSounds like the bank is just incompetent. Many years ago, I deposited a check from my business account to my personal account, where both accounts were held with the same bank, and somehow, they messed up where the check was for something like $1500, but they only deposited $500 into my personal account and deducted $500 from my business account. Called them up, and they deposited the missing $1000 into my personal account but didn't take the funds from my business account, effectively giving me $1000 for free. Tried calling them several times and explaining what had happened, though the customer service folks were useless. Seemed like no-one really cared about resolving the issue. Eventually, after something like 9-10 months, someone realized and one morning, my business account was suddenly debited for $1000.
- deeth_starr 10y agoThis. They usually figure it out later if it's in their benefit. You've got one month to catch an error on their part.
- vijayr 10y agoThey were all armed like they thought I might be a mad gangster. A lot of the people in there need help not incarceration. Is there any place in the world where the justice system is totally impartial, helpful, not overreaching etc?
- deeth_starr 10y agoI'm not sure about Austraila, but he likely wouldn't pass the bar in California. I would suggest he picks another profession. Edit: admitting to amoral behavior, drug use, etc. Those are grounds for the bar to not let you practice.
- nurettin 10y agoSo how did the bank screw up like this? They deal with so much money, you and your grandchildren could make a living from the rent they pay for a single branch office. Yet they are unable to purchase the skill set and competence to stop giving people unbalanced credit or stop international fraud at scale.
- slyall 10y agoA couple of other examples: Gas Station owner given $10 million overdraft instead of $100,000 , transfers it all offshore and runs: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10829144 http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objecti... Student given "unlimited" overdraft, spends $4 million on handbags and clothes: http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/world/80263909/Westpac-admits-simple-mistake-gave-Christine-Jia-Xin-Lee-a-5m-overdraft http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/world/80263909/Westpac-admit...