The Chase Bank Glitch

~ Clarissa

We often forget where many people are intellectually and then feel surprised when their actions affect us.

The Chase Bank glitch is a case in point:

A ‘glitch’ at Chase bank’s ATMs which allowed customers to withdraw money from their account after depositing fake checks for large sums has seen a wave of people flaunt their cash online.

It appears some Chase customers wrote checks with outlandish amounts and deposited them to get tens of thousands of dollars that weren’t theirs, which had some calling it an ‘infinite money hack.’

But experts say this isn’t a harmless life hack but rather a case classic check fraud, which is punishable by fines and jail time in serious cases.

“Experts say” is particularly lovely, given that anybody with a 3-digit IQ would know not to deposit fake checks without needing to consult any experts.

People say Chase did this on purpose to discover fraudsters but the people who participated in the “free money” extravaganza, posting their exploits on social media and expecting not to have to return the fraudulent gains or pay fines, are profoundly stupid. They don’t have anything that Chase might want to take, so the purpose of an organized glitch is unclear.

I’m not very interested in Chase – which is probably the worst bank in America anyway – but these people could vote. Or let their ballots be harvested, which is more likely.

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Published by Clarissa

31 thoughts on “The Chase Bank Glitch”

  1. “They don’t have anything that Chase might want to take”

    We don’t know that….

    This sounds like the beginning of a dystopian futurist novel where banks trick the less intellectually gifted to turn them into property.

    I’ve been saying for… some time now that a return of open slavery is in the cards, debt bondage seems to be a logical starting point.

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    1. Chase is THE most dishonest US bank, in my opinion, and that’s saying a lot. I definitely wouldn’t be shocked if they were trying an experiment of sorts with a nefarious long-term goal.

      Maybe it’s not a 100% financial proposition but a social experiment of sorts. This is an abyss I don’t even want to look into or imagine.

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      1. “video real or parody? That’s painful”

        Welcome to the left hand side of the Bell Curve….

        In the US, it’s one more reason to detest the destruction of the public school system…. school choice sounds great until you realize how many people aren’t up to making a choice (and have no hope of being able to educate their kids themselves) and how screwed they’ll be by the burned out husk of public schools.

        I remember in elementary school we broadly realized who the smarter and dumber kids were (and there was no real shame in being dumber… they often had advantages in other areas). Now unless you’re above average you’re condemned to Loserville.

        Didn’t have to be this way it was all deliberate choices…. nudged in a lot of cases but… choices.

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        1. (recoil)

          My parents are intelligent people. But not elitists. We were friends with all sorts– crazy people, not-so-bright people, semi-functional alcoholics, society matrons, conmen, leathery chainsmoking artists– I just don’t remember anybody like… who didn’t know that you should hold the end of the tape at the floor straight across to get an accurate read. He’s got one end halfway up the wall. I’m thinking back to the absolute most dysfunctional family of our acquaintance, not an intellectual in the batch, rife with schizos and drunks, the boys were all removed from school at 13 by their dad, to work in his paint & body shop (and that was before all the safety equipment so their brains were probably like swiss cheese). They could have estimated the floor area of that room in a glance, using volume of paint as the measuring unit. Couldn’t name any play by Shakespeare, but could diagnose 75% of common car problems just by listening to the engine. Not the smartest, but a great deal of competence in a narrow range.

          I can understand cultural ignorance, but that level of inability is scary. I hope they have other competencies that make up for it, eg the guy who runs an excavator like an extension of his own body but gets stumped when it comes to household budgeting.

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            1. “It’s a parody”

              If so… then still very accurate. I’ve overheard people and conversations that are just as clueless and lost (and interacted with a few… very depressing).

              the more fortunate among us in a world that prioritizes IQ over most everything else have little idea of how baffling and unnavigable the modern world can be for the left side of the curve.

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              1. The other day I had to show a student how to open a door. He unsuccessfully tried to get out of the stairs into the hallway by pushing onto the door (multiple times). I showed him how to operate the door handle. He did see it there since he grabbed it, he just didn’t think to push it down to open.

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              2. Sigh.

                This is one of the catch-22s of modern life, eh? We self-sort by IQ. Smart kids go off to college, college is one giant progressive indoctrination machine, and… we don’t get them back.

                It’s worse than that, though. We don’t get them back in their hometowns, we don’t get them back in critical infrastructure jobs where they are absolutely necessary because that’s low-status and it’s better to be poor and white-collar than well-paid and have to wear a hardhat, right?

                My grandfather was a chemical engineer: he wore a hardhat to work every day, and a clip-on tie. Because if your clip-on tie gets caught in a machine, it won’t kill you. He was a respected elder in his church, and a staunch conservative, despite being well-paid, well-educated, and very intelligent.

                We’ve broken the sociocultural machine that produced him.

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              3. One thing left unsaid is that the low-paid white collar job will get you a decent health insurance. Because you haven’t worn them out, your joints will still work when you retire and you will be able to go for walks with your spouse or play with your grandchildren.

                Not all blue-collar workers get paid well. The experts do and they’re the minority.

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              4. From what I’ve heard, though, we’ve done such a thorough job of discouraging intelligent people from becoming exactly those experts, that we are facing a pretty dire shortage of them now.

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  3. From twitter:

    Maybe the most important thing you learn by attending public school is that we are all at the mercy of the bottom quintile. The rules you follow in life will be based on the behavior of the bottom quintile, the taxes you pay are to support the bottom quintile, the greatest risks to your life and property will come from the bottom quintile, the dearth of comfortable public spaces is because you have to allow the bottom quintile to be there, our zoning laws are developed for fear of the bottom quintile. Probably best to learn and accept this early.

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      1. On a related note, remember we used to hear so much about The Talk™, this conversation that black parents supposedly have with their kids about how society hates them and that they have to be extra careful and civil because the police are just looking for a reason to shoot them dead? This sounds so funny to me. I mean, you look at the behavior of the urban youth in literally every big city and literally the only conclusion you can draw from it is that this is a group of people who’s uniquely NOT afraid of the police lol.

        The Talk™ discourse just fell off. I wonder if the rise of video and social media had something to do with it.

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  4. A tale of TikTok, ATMs, and check fraud. A supposed glitch in JPMorgan Chase ATMs, free money siren call. Chase did indeed have a glitch, allowing this ATM magic which permitted users to deposit a check and immediately access the funds listed on it.

    The company fixed the issue within days, but not before some social media users celebrated their newfound wealth. Chase rectified the fraudulent withdrawals by deducting the stolen cash from users’ accounts.

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  5. In many ways, the whole economy during and after Covid feels like a chase bank glitch.

    Amazing thread. Single person companies propped up to take advantage of PPP loans that were all forgiven. Worldwide crab shortage, Nike sales skyrocketing lol.

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  6. There’s this distinctly american belief that criminality is caused by economic status and I could not disagree more. This is a poisonous idea.

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    1. I wouldn’t say it’s caused by economic status, but there is a pattern. The expected association that you’re probably unhappy about is the criminals at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder.

      But there is also criminality at the top of the economic ladder that goes unpunished.

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      2. This is not universal, though. Many people, myself included, have had the eye-opening experience of getting to know poor people in other countries, who still live in an intact, functional, low-crime culture (or subculture more often) centered around communal religious observance.

        Part of the dysfunction in America seems to be population mobility. The urban poor here are often displaced– it’s easy to break ties with family, the community you grew up in. There’s no social policing, no community safety net, and no reputation accountability. In other places, some of the same things that entrap people in poverty generation after generation… also preserve the cultural and family ties that keep them from descending into barbarism. Lack of mobility is one of those things. Official discrimination based on race/religion/caste is another.

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        1. –addendum–

          Even now, as a 21st century American, I’m congenitally incapable of saying that discrimination and lack of economic opportunity are a good thing. Can’t do it.

          But the fact that those things preserve culture and community, even while they entrap people in long-term poverty, is something we completely fail to grapple with. Black people in America had a much higher rate of intact families, back when they were often banned from white neighborhoods and restaurants, and it’s much the same phenomenon as my Catholic friends in VN, who, though poor, live in an amazingly safe, humane, town where the church and extended family act as a backstop to mitigate some effects of material poverty. The really smart and ambitious kids are penalized for being Catholic… but ultimately what that means is that they stay in the hometown and benefit everyone there, instead of going off and getting rich in the big city and never coming back. That is breaking up as the country grows more prosperous, and the discrimination eases up. I love seeing my friends become successful and build exciting businesses. But… there’s a bit of sadness mixed in. I’m not sure they know what they’re losing. The urban industrial west strip-mines the social and genetic capital of its small towns and lower-income communities. Is there some way to be prosperous and also *not* do that?

          Nobody talks about this.

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          1. Yeah, I’m a total hypocrite here because I’ve moved a lot. But now that I have kids especially, I can see the benefit to staying in one place, being near family, and being an integral part of a community. I’m working actively on all those things, and at the same time kind of dreading the next time we move… which is completely inevitable unless by some miracle the owner of our rental decides to sell it to us. Since kids, every move has been completely wrenching.

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            1. I moved a lot, too, and it’s precisely because of this that I know how hard it is and what heavy costs it exacts. Especially on people who are not as adaptable and don’t have all the skills I do.

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  7. Anyway, let’s focus on the beautiful fact that PPP loans during COVID caused a worldwide crab shortage. If you were the kind of person who participated in this fraud and got away with it, why wouldn’t you believe that Chase bank will let you keep the money you deposited with a fake check?

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