An Irish fella had all of his hopes and dreams come true when almost €200 million appeared in his bank account.
Sadly, the dream only lasted around two hours for Kevin Conway, who felt like a multimillionaire after a brief technical glitch on his Revolut app.
Conway opened the currency app on his phone last week to discover €197,245,088 had been deposited into his ‘vault’, which is a method of saving within the app.
As per the Irish Mirror, he rechecked his app over and over, while the amount remained the same, when the true amount should’ve been around €200.
He told RTE News:
It was around 3pm or 4pm on Friday of last week and I checked my app and it said I had a balance of €197m.
Then all of a sudden it was gone.
I didn’t know what to do. I was scratching my head. I was €200 million richer for two hours there.
Revolut has since described the issue as a ‘temporary bug’, adding that although the €200 million appeared in his account, Conway wouldn’t actually have been able to withdraw the funds from that account.
RTEA spokesperson for the currency card said:
This had no impact on the funds in that account and the error was quickly corrected by a customer support agent.
According to Conway, when he queried the gaffe on a web chat with a Revolut customer support agent, she joked that she wished the huge savings sum had been real.
She told him, ‘I wish we could do it. I would make myself rich and you as well!’
Revolut offers banking services including a prepaid debit card, currency exchange, cryptocurrency exchange and peer-to-peer payments.
RevolutWhile Conway was unable to financially benefit from the error, there have been others who have been able to do so in the past. However, a number of those who’ve done so have been prosecuted.
Margaret McDonnell went on a ‘massive spending spree’ in March 2013 after a bank accidentally put €51,000 into her account.
The 23-year-old, from Dublin, spent money on items like clothing and shoes for her children. She received a suspended jail sentence in April 2017.
There’s a lesson to be learned here – just because it lands in your bank account, doesn’t make it your money.
Unlucky, Kevin.
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Emma Rosemurgey is an NCTJ trained Journalist who started her career by producing The Royal Rosemurgey newspaper in 2004, which kept her family up to date with the goings on of her sleepy north east village. She graduated from the University of Central Lancashire in Preston and started her career in regional newspapers before joining Tyla (formerly Pretty 52) in 2017, and progressing onto UNILAD in 2019.