AN international hunt is on for a couple who fled New Zealand with millions of dollars after Westpac mistakenly deposited $NZ10 million ($7.9million) into their bank account.

A breakdown in Westpac New Zealand's manual processes for keying in and checking electronic transfers of money has been blamed for the error.

The couple, who operated a now-closed service station in Rotorua, on New Zealand's North Island, had been granted a $NZ10,000 overdraft, but instead were paid $NZ10 million. The pair, and possibly other family members, are believed to be in China.

Westpac is working with New Zealand Police to track them down and Interpol has been alerted.

A bank spokesman said the multi-million-dollar deposit was the result of a manual keying mistake, which had been compounded by a checking error - also manual. "But there was another aspect to this, and that was the morals of the people involved," hesaid.

"We have reviewed the case and put changes in place to ensure the likelihood of this happening again is minimised."

Initially, the couple appeared to have got away with most of the $NZ10million. However, it is understood that about $NZ6 million was transferred into other accounts, and the bank and NZ authorities were able to reverse some of those transactions. The couple's final haul is about $NZ3million.

The Westpac spokesman said he could give no further details of the customers, one of whom is believed not to be a New Zealand national.

I must say, that would be very tempting. I would like to believe though that I would step up and report the error.
Besides, there may be a reward for honesty rather than pursuit for dishonesty.

This could just be my distrust of the banks, but I would have taken the money because I don't believe for one second the bank wouldn't do the same if it were reversed. But then again the thought of going to jail over something like that might make me think twice, it's too hard to say without it happening.

The main thing that you would have to weigh up would be whether you were willing & able to live a life on the run... for the rest of your life. One of the initial things to consider would be the amount of overseas contacts that you had, and also whether you could trust those people enough and that they were subservient enough to want to assist you, and not just for monetary gain - as I am sure the bank will have put a tidy sum up for ransom, the capture or knowledge of the whereabouts, being the prime objective.

Personally I think you would have to reevaluate your life, and what you wanted to achieve in your lifetime. If you want to live a life that is moving increasingly into a shadowy underground, a life that potentially could then offer a lot of other avenues...then it could be that this is something you should or could do. You are not going to be able to live a 'dream' life if you leave with this money, you problems will not be over. Your problems will just be starting and they will continue for the rest of your anxious, nervy, untrusting existence.

So, I would not take the money...unless I felt the revolutionary in me, and I decide that it's enough money to organise a coupe in a small South American despot... and then it would potentially involve bloody warfare and a fair amount of time to establish a hold...OK, no. That's not for me.

It's not for me. I would advise them of the mistake and hopefully they might think about giving me a little token of thanks. Part of me doubts that my bank would even offer me anything. Which put me back into the thought loop about taking the money.

Personally, the banks can take it and have on many an occasion overcharged customers here in this country.. If my bank was stupid enough to put 10 million in my account.. I would have that money spent soo fast.. I would leave them reeling for years.. I wouldn't leave the country.. I would make tham pay for puting me in such a dellima.. That is a mistake that I would love.. if you run you are giving the impression you've done something wrong.. it's not like you came up with some sort of elabrote plan to scam the bank.. you just suddenly found 10 million quid in your lap... I would make them work to get it back.. mistake or not they gave out the money and they can try to get it back.

I have been on the other side of that argument. When I lived in london BT sent me my regular monthly bill.. usually for £35 quid or there abouts.. so you can imagine my surprise when I received a bill for £3500.00 quid!!! When I rang them up thay told me it was a typo error.. Which made me think.. what about the one's that are not imeadiatly noticable? and, what would have happened if I payed the bill?

I still have the BT bill.

There should be a bank-rule that's similar to the 10% finder's fee: if you know you're getting say 0.5% from such errors, at least there's an incentive to do the right thing.

I wouldn't hesitate for a second: a few million should be enough to buy a new identity

I am with you mr monkey.

Bank insurances will pay that back to the bank so no point in returning the money, i would fly to Brazil and party for the rest of my life or die trying
In Brazil its impossible to be arrested for something you did in another country lol

HAHA I would be gone in a heart beat. Buy a new identity and enjoy somewhere tropical

More like Asia.

A relative of a New Zealand couple who scored millions of dollars from a banking error, and who is believed to have fled with the pair, has told friends she is drinking Chinese beer and enjoying the Asian heat. The fugitive couple and their small entourage have been traced to Hong Kong, Macau and mainland China, largely via one of their indiscreet updates on social networking site Facebook.

Also, I found this funny in the above link...



WTF??? How can you be traumatised by hitting the wrong decimal place on a keyboard?

I assume the banker lost their job. that would traumatize me. But I would take the money and run Brazil sounds good to me

Totally agree with ADL. Disappearing would be easy. Bring me another pina colada, will you....

If you have to hit that key a thousand times a day, your mistake-that-went-round-the-world might start doing weird stuff in your brain, I guess

I would take the money and run so fast my beret would fall off.

I can understand how the bank worker would be traumatized, he made a multi-million dollar error, I'd be wondering what the bank would do with me.

here is an other quandry then if this Suppossed Bank employee made a mistake then how many zero's did he accidently hit In his alleged Mistake, the origenal amount wanted for the loan was only 10,000 so it would havebeen a more major mistake on the employees part to go from 10, 000 to 10,000,000???????????????
hell id be happy if my bank would make a mistake with my fortnightly pension payment and added just the one zero at the end
but to go from 10,000 to 10,000,000 thats more then opne typing error aint it

I would be the hell out of there. See you later pal!

Aaaahhhhhhh..... good times!

You'd better believe that if that happened to me you wouldn't see me for dust.

I have to agree although AFAIK I'm not aware of many people getting rewards for doing the right thing where banks are concerned. They're all too happy to take but when it comes to giving back it's another story.

Take, for example, the unfair bank charges. Regulations state that a bank charge must be fair. How fair is going overdrawn by a few pence only to be sent an AUTOMATED letter and being charged (in most cases) £20 for it. Now let's get something straight - this is an automated letter meaning virtually no paid human time to write, print, frank and post so how can it cost £20 per letter? No wonder so many people are claiming unjust charges back. I just hope the banks (who are currently appealing against all this) lose their fight in the courts.

Therefore I am with the family - I'd pretty much run. Open a tax free account, place it all in there and vanish then lie low.

I wouldn't keep it. I'd be caught so fast, how could you live on the run for your whole life that'd suck, no thanks

id be missin in action mate..l8r .. and the banks would get the
no remorse here
if i got caught ..ah well ..id have fun before they did catch me and in the uk ..i know personaly that jail is easy and would be out in not long at all
so yea..id say fuk em

At first I thought I would definitely return it. But with that kind of money it would be too easy to dissappear and get a new identity. So I will have to be honest and say I would most assuredly take the money and run. The only downfall to that would be that I dont know if they would be able to track me through the DS. I wouldnt be able to stay away and I know it would be simple enough to change my DS identity as well but I would want everyone to know it was me.

What kills me is that they are being hunted like criminals, the bank put the money in their account not them, but they are being treated like they robbed the bank at gun point. What crime did they really commit, and if they are guilty so is the banker, why isn't he in jail for giving the banks money away.

Me, I would have broke it up in separate accounts and then turned it into bonds and took the bond certificates to the Bahamas and sold them to a bank there. You can't walk out of a bank with millions in cash but you can with bonds certificates.

I would have to say I would turn it in one reason is my religion and it is the right thing to do because look what is happening to them and when they get caught they will go to jail so what was the point maybe you wont get a reward but you have a clean conscience and to me that is bigger and better then all that money sorry you might call me crazy but that is just me.

the bank has did that to me with some money already and i have turned it back you see it just doesn't affect you other people could loose their jobs to.

who me ? i didnt recive any money,bye

I have to say I'm with Wolf, I would probably fess up and return it. If for no other reason than just to set the example for my daughter of right & wrong, and earning your own way.

I do have to say many, many years ago I took my paycheck to the bank, while the girl was doing the deposit and giving me what was supposed to be $200.00 back we where yapping. When I got back to work I noticed instead of giving me the $200 she had given me $400. I called right away and told her of the mistake. She was so happy. She could have been in for a long night of reviewing every transaction for the day and possibly sanctioned and or fired for it. Because of my phone call she at least had an explanation for her boss. I wasn't able to return the money until the next day because of my work schedule, but when I showed up with the money the next day I was treated like royalty. Apparently they had a bet going on weather or not I would actually bring it back, and the teller I saw won. Not only did it make me feel good that she already new that I was that kind of person, and had faith that I would return it, but she gave me a ton of free stuff. Apparently over the years of giving away free gifts for opening accounts, they had a bunch of left over stuff. I got an electric full size cooler/warmer that runs of the cigarette lighter, some pretty cool folding chairs, some really cool travel mugs, and a bunch of other stuff. They literally filled my car, I had to tell them no more, I had no where to put anymore. I still use that cooler to this day, it woks great! Also I was treated like a VIP from that day on every time I went in there. All over $200, that wasn't mine to begin with.

You'd be in the next cell to me, then.

Ah facebook.

@stone and wolf, had the cashier at the gas station give me to much change and handed it back twice now, generally opposed to stealing. Heres the BIG but, the bank made the mistake and its the bank.

Just the other day my niece overdrafted her debit card by a few dollars on the last transaction she made, her bank jumped it to the head of the line and she now has to pay 5 overdraft fees of $35 each. This kind of thing is common, every one here has prolly had their bank nip a few $$ from them in the last year and never realized it, read an interesting article on that, how they put fees on people they weren't supposed to or just simply dropped the .00 off transactions.

Its about time some one got them.

While I would have to agree with you that the banks are corrupt in many of their practices, adding more corruption to the mix isn't an answer. We learn very young the difference between what is right and what is wrong. As we get older we learn how tho blur the line between the two for our benifit, but our children can still plainly see it and which side of it we are on.

I would of picked another place besides china

i would like to have the bottle to do it , unfortunatly my 'guilt gene' is too big and i would own up . as nice as it would be to have all that cash id probably be too chicken to enjoy it

Im with you mate!
Banks are corporations,all they care about is their shareholders,screw em,i hope they are never found.
Good on em.