Matt Damon-Backed Crypto Firm Accidentally Transfers Woman $10.5 Million Instead of $100
Nearly a year later, the company still hasn't recovered any of the massive overpayment.
2022 has seen the bottom fall out of cryptocurrency prices, NFT interest has plummeted, several crypto exchanges have committed fraud or have become insolvent, and now we can add gross mismanagement to the list after, in late 2021, Crypto.com botched a simple $100 transfer and instead sent $10.5 million to an Australian woman. To make matters even worse, it took the crypto firm seven months to notice the mistake, and as of now, the company has yet to recover any of the funds nine months later.
The Crypto industry is also proving to be much easier for hackers to penetrate than previously believed. Seemingly every week, we hear about another major exchange being hacked and users’ funds being drained.
Now, we can add gross ineptitude to the issues plaguing the industry. In late 2021, Crypto.com, a cryptocurrency exchange backed by Matt Damon and other celebrities, discovered a $10 million mistake on a refund request.
Crypto.com user and Australian resident Thevamanogari Manivel originally submitted a request to refund $100 to her account in May 2021. However, a Crypto.com employee accidentally entered her account number in the dollar amount field, resulting in Manivel receiving $10.5 million instead of the $100 she requested. The firm did not realize the mistake until December 2021, more than six months after Manivel received the funds.
Once the mistake was realized, Crypto.com set about trying to retrieve the funds by suing Manivel for repayment. The court froze Manivel’s Crypto.com account, but she had already dispersed the funds to various accounts and even purchased a $1.35 million home. Manivel then transferred that home to her sister, who lives in Malaysia, making it that much more difficult to recover the funds.
Thus far, Crypto.com has been unsuccessful in freezing the accounts to which Manivel dispersed the remaining money, leaving her free to spend freely. They’ve also been unable to contact her or her sister to serve their lawsuit.
The company did get one piece of good news recently in the form of a default judgment by the court. Since Manivel did not show up to court, Crypto.com won its lawsuit by default. The court’s decision will likely lead to the sale of the house and add $27,370 (and counting) in interest.
While the house sale will get back a decent amount of the overpayment, Crypto.com is still chasing around $9 million, with slim hope of ever getting it back. Where the saga goes next largely depends on how successfully Manivel can evade attempts at bringing her in.
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Disclaimer: Wealthy VC does not hold a position in any of the stocks mentioned in this article.
