A MAN was left in utter disbelief after realising he had just become one of the richest men in the world after his bank handed him a whopping £43billion by accident.
Darren James, 47, was left speechless when he first saw the number pop up on his banking app as the zeros just kept on going – making him the 26th richest man on the planet.
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The lucky father of two found out about his huge gift after receiving a frantic call from his wife, urging him to investigate the mammoth cash sitting pretty in their account.
The staggering fortune would have ranked him inside the top 30 richest men on the current Forbes World’s Billionaires List, rubbing shoulders with the likes of Walmart’s owners and Nike’s famed boss Phil Knight.
Darren’s lucky break also saw him briefly worth more than ten times Virgin boss Richard Branson and seven times wealthier than vacuum tycoon James Dyson.
With $50billion in his pocket the real-estate agent could’ve invested big into the stock markets and bought his fair share of thriving business’ such as the recently up for grabs role as the Manchester United chairman.
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Sir Jim Ratcliffe is rumoured to be investing a big £1.6billion chunk into the historic club – a tiny amount compared to what Darren could’ve pumped into the team.
Or follow in Tom Brady or Michael B Jordan’s footsteps and buy stakes in a different sports team that takes his fancy.
Splash the cash away on endless holidays with his family or stick some of billions into the housing market and make even more back on his investments.
Darren could’ve bought gold, cars and the latest gadgets and next level tech and still be left with a massive fortune to his name.
The Louisiana local would soon be sitting around the same tables as mega billionaires Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos with the hefty new injection of money – or so he thought.
All was too good to be true as the pricey banking blunder was ultimately revealed as a huge error from his bank Chase.
This meant he gig was up before the new lavish lifestyle even got underway and within 72 hours the money had disappeared, never to be seen again by Darren or his disappointed family.
He told BR Proud: “It was crazy just to see what it looks like because I’ve never seen that many zeros in my life.”
“I’m like where did that come from?” he told FOX9 in a separate interview after the confusion had been cleared up.
“And all we were thinking was who’s going to be knocking on our door…because we don’t know anybody with that type of money to begin with.”
Darren’s brush with billions vanished but it was he himself who handed back the money.
After he had gone through a long list of potential investors into his pretty ordinary life including a long lost relative or secret jackpot he had once won but never claimed Darren got on the phone to Chase bank.
He said: “We knew it wasn’t ours. We didn’t earn it, so we couldn’t do anything with it.”
Darren used to work as a law enforcement officer so knew a thing or two about what was legally correct in these sorts of situations – even if it was far from a regular occurrence.
After his slightly disheartening call, James said Chase began working to reverse the error straight away.
But the bank didn’t mention any reason why he was sent $50billion out of the blue or where the funds came from.
Within days, the money was gone from the James’ account.
The family said: “It was a hold placed on it. It showed up on Saturday to make a deposit for our daughter. It stayed there Sunday, Monday and Tuesday it was gone.”
James said he and his family enjoyed the thrill of feeling like one of the world’s richest families, even if it was just for a matter of days.
Unlike Darren some people who strike it rich from others mistakes quickly spend the money they’ve got there hands on.
One of these was a mum who bought a house with an erroneous £6million deposit from Crypto.com.
Thevamanogari Manivel was due to receive a £60 refund from cryptocurrency exchange – but instead received the mouthwatering sum.
The company accidentally entered an account number in the field that was meant to be the cash amount.
As Manivel, from Melbourne, Australia ended up spending a large chunk on a plush house and shipped the rest off to other accounts.
She had splashed out £800,000 on a five-bedroom, four-bathroom house as a “gift” for her sister as she happily dished the rest out among six others including her daughter and sister.
She quickly came back down to earth however as the mistake was later realised in a routine audit sparking serious legal cases against Manivel.
People who stumble upon mistaken money aren’t entitled to keep a single penny of it and will more than likely find themselves in deep waters – especially if they’ve spent all the extra cash and can’t pay it back.
In most circumstances, the bank in question will spot the error and reverse the transaction automatically.
Anyone who spends the money is likely to be hit with criminal charges.
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