Careless Hans! How German bank clerk nodded off at keyboard, and turned €64 payment into €22,222,222.22
Miranda Bryant
11 June 2013
A bank clerk who nodded off at his keyboard during a transaction nearly made a client tens of millions of pounds richer.
The clerk was making a payment of 64.20 euros (£54.60) but as he fell asleep he left his finger on the number two key, accidentally putting through a payment of 22,222,222.22 euros (£189,682,360).
The payment almost went through when the supervisor who was supposed to be looking out for such mistakes allegedly failed to notice and approved the transaction.
Luckily for the bank — and the clerk — the mistake was spotted by another colleague who managed to correct it before it was too late.
The bank accused the clerk’s supervisor of not verifying the work and dismissed her for allowing such a huge mistake.
Judges at a labour court in Hesse, Germany, ruled that the 48-year-old woman, who was an employee at the bank since 1986, should only have been reprimanded for the accident in April last year.
The court heard that on the day of the transaction, she had checked 812 documents for mistakes, with most taking just over a second of consideration. The judges ruled that there had been no malicious intent on her behalf.
As a result, they ordered the bank to re-employ the supervisor and said her contract should not have been terminated. It was unclear whether the man who fell asleep lost his job.
Either way, at least the bank clerk can take comfort in the fact that he is in good company. Pope Francis recently admitted that he sometimes nods off while praying at the end of a long day but God “understands”.
More often it is an email blunder that causes embarrassment. Last year an Aviva Investors worker accidentally “sacked” 1,300 staff by email after forwarding a “goodbye” to everyone.
The message, sent out by the company’s human resources department, was supposed to go to one worker who was leaving that day.
Bride-to-be Pauline Bailey was left “humiliated” after trying to book Stoke Park Hotel in Stoke Poges, Buckinghamshire, for her £10,000 dream wedding, but was dismayed to receive an email saying that she and her fiancé Paul Carty were not the right “type of people”.
