| ▲ | appplication 5 hours ago |
| An acquaintance of mine was accidentally wired about $100k when it was supposed to be $5k. Before it could be reversed, they moved accounts and immediately bought a one way flight out of country. They then changed all socials and handles. They are now ignoring all court documents and are on track to get a default judgement against them. Their rationale? “It’s mine, they owed me this”. They are 100% convinced that they are in the right, not just that they can keep it but that they actually intended to send them this to begin with. I get it $100k isn’t nothing but they’re also throwing their life away for less than what they used to make a year in salary. People do weird things when given sudden access to money or power. |
|
| ▲ | SteveGerencser 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| I had a client send me an ACH that was legitimately a fat finger extra zero. For me, it was a "lot" of truck payments. For them, it was a rounding error that they were unaware of until I reached out and let them know about their mistake. I couldn't wait to make it right with them because it bothered me so much because suddenly I had a pile of money that was theirs and not mine. |
| |
| ▲ | fibonachos 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | I had a similar situation where someone had their email client configured with my address in the reply-to header. We shared a first initial, last name, and isp… also happened to be my email address. His email was firsnamelastname, or something similar. I emailed the guy several times explaining how to fix it, and that I was getting a lot of his business correspondence. Never heard from him. Then one day I get a Chase Zelle email saying that someone was sending me money. Something like $500. Logged into the Chase app and sure enough, could have taken it with the click of a button. I contacted the sender to explain the situation and recommended they call the intended recipient for a correct email address. Couldn’t image just taking it knowing it wasn’t intended for me. |
|
|
| ▲ | ElProlactin an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > People do weird things when given sudden access to money or power. It's more that money and power enable you to be who you really are, and amplify your worst traits if you're lacking self-awareness. There are many people who are rich/wealthy and/or powerful and they're decent individuals living relatively ordinary lives. You don't read about most of them because they're "normal". |
| |
| ▲ | hawaiianbrah 34 minutes ago | parent [-] | | > It's more that money and power enable you to be who you really are If you’re only a certain way when you have money and power, is it really “who you really are”? | | |
|
|
| ▲ | JumpCrisscross 16 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > they moved accounts and immediately bought a one way flight out of country To be fair this is smarter than like 95% of white-collar criminals. |
|
| ▲ | SXX 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > People do weird things when given sudden access to money or power. Given your story its not sounds like this is power grab. More like they actually on spectrum and have some mental issues on top this. Or had mental breakdown because something happened before that money arrived. Situations when people do something weird, bad or just plain evil for money and power are usually logical. E.g people think they got access to more money they percieve they can earn in next decade, or ever, something that settles them for life. Earning more than $100,000 and throwing everything away for $95,000 only make sense if you are terminally ill. Or if it was never your real identify in first place and its well planned scam. |
| |
| ▲ | decimalenough 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | If you're earning $100k in Silicon Valley, your expenses will swallow up almost all of that. A sudden $100k windfall, on the other hand, tax free and suitably invested,will let you live for years quite comfortably in many poor countries. | | |
| ▲ | SXX 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | Sorry to disappoint you, but no you cannot live "comfortably" in "poor countries" for $100,000 for "years". Well, unless you mean like two years. I lived across South East Asia for more than decade and now live here full time. I have to live on around $20,000 / year most of the time since starting my company. And I do not live anywhere close to what average US / EU citizen will call "comfortable" let alone people from valley. Stories of rich living for cheap in poor countries its just that: stories. It only possible if you preserve your US salary. For $50,000 post tax a year you can live well unless you have kids that need not a "poor country education". | | |
| ▲ | decimalenough 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Sure, if you're starting from nothing and expect to live a Western lifestyle. But you can draw down $5000/year from that sum for a very long time, and make twice the average Indian yearly income. | | |
| ▲ | SXX 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | One more thing about life in developing countries, ones with seemingly super low GDP per capita. Its that low because a lot of economy in rural areas is simple unaccounted for: communities build their own housing, grow their own food or work in family business usually with no accounting or taxes whatsoever. If you're born there you unlikely to ever end up in US on $100,000+ job unless your whole family or village invest in it. If you're expat you will soon end up finding out that as expat you'll pay completely different prices and starting local business is just impossible unless you become part of a family. | |
| ▲ | SXX 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Okay lets say you are a person who want and able to live on average Indian yearly income in rural India. How the hell you end up in US on $100,000+ job? How much time it took and how much you spent on education / job search / migration to US? If you're from India then likely all your relatives invested into your education and migrarion. |
| |
| ▲ | coccinelle 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | 50,000 sounds like a lot. Most people in West European countries don’t make that much. | | |
| ▲ | ElFitz 42 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | EU average is ~€39.000, gross, before taxes. And only nine countries have above average average salaries. And that’s not available income. France median pre-tax "net" income is ~€2.100 / month. | | | |
| ▲ | zdc1 13 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | The question is still what number people need to live "comfortably" (i.e. upper middle class). The average salary there may not quite provide for the amenities the average American considers "comfortable". |
| |
| ▲ | lobsterthief 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I agree (from semi-relevant experience). Also, any “poor” country that’s inexpensive enough to fit this requirements probably isn’t one you’d voluntarily live in. Side note for the original commenter: It would be kinder and more accurate to state “lower cost of living countries” than “poor countries”. There are numerous lower COL countries that offer a higher quality of life a than that of the US but they aren’t “poor” (I moved to one). | | |
| ▲ | SXX 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | And likely "suitable" countries are not the ones you want to do any investments or even transfer 100,000 to local bank. I understand that side note wasnt for me, but yeah most of cheaper developing South East Asia countries are not "poor". Though there are ones you can call that, but again in a such countries you dont really want anyone to know you have $100,000 somewhere on a bank because its can get unsafe very fast. Its either "live just a little better than locals" or get in trouble. PS: I talking of Myanmar, most of Laos and Cambodia. |
| |
| ▲ | Jensson 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | The person was probably from a poor country already and was used to that. | | |
| ▲ | SXX 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | I do get that $100,000 in expensive parts of silicon valley likely will buy you a room, some food and commute to work, but math dont make sense here. Person from that kind of country likely had to spend $100,000 just to find job and move to US and survive there for the first time. Legal migration to US is super hard and super expensive. You have to be both very successful in what you do and very dedicated in order to do it. Or very rich. And it take years. People who choose to migrate to US and manage to do it isnt the type to throw it away on small scam. And if they managed to get in easy, fast and illegally then they wont be the ones competing for $100,000+ job. |
| |
| ▲ | 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [deleted] |
|
|
|
|
| ▲ | groundzeros2015 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > immediately bought a one way flight out of country Is this referring to a foreign national who can leave at any time? |
|
| ▲ | delusional 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > They are 100% convinced that they are in the right, not just that they can keep it but that they actually intended to send them this to begin with. They quite clearly do not believe that. If they did, they wouldn't need to go into hiding or leave the country. |
|
| ▲ | amazingman 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| This honestly sounds like mental illness. |
| |
