A paycheck mixup might have just changed the course of one man’s life forever.
After a mistake made by a Chilean company’s human resources department, one employee got access to funds he’d never seen before.
According to Fortune, an unnamed worker at Consorcio Industrial de Alimentos (Cial) — a producer of cold cuts — received 330 times the amount he is normally paid during a pay period. What usually equals out to 500,000 Chilean pesos (about $555) on the paycheck ended up being $165,398,851 (which is $183,593). For context, in Chile, the average amount that a worker takes home equals roughly $1,000 per month.
After reporting the error to his manager, it was discovered that the overpayment was due to a mixup by the HR department. The worker was then told to hit up his bank in order to begin the return process for the funds, which he promised to do the next day… he did not fulfill that promise.
While, he did indeed head over to the bank, the man — who has not been publicly named — did not return the money. Instead he completely vanished. He did, however, have a lawyer submit his resignation from the company before he went completely ghost.
“He was informed and clarified that this money did not correspond to the payment of any service,” said the legal action, translated by AfroTech from Santiago-based newspaper, Diario Financiero. He was specifically instructed to have his bank produce a sight voucher in the name of Cial to return the funds.
At this time, the company has filed a complaint charging the worker with misappropriation of funds, but no official arrest has been made. The company still hopes that they will be able to recover the funds that have been lost, but it looks like this worker might have just had the come up of a lifetime.
