Key Takeaways:
- CryptoCom discovered that they had paid the woman $10 million rather than a $100 refund during an audit after 7 months.
- With the money, the woman has already purchased a multi-million dollar property.
After accidentally giving an Australian woman named Thevamanogari Manivel a $10 million refund, major cryptocurrency exchange Crypto.Com has filed a lawsuit against her. The woman apparently phoned the exchange looking for a $100 refund but unintentionally received one for $10 million.
According to the source, Crypto.com didn’t discover the issue until seven months later, during a year-end audit. The error occurred when an account number was entered in the payment area instead of the initially requested amount.
The user was then legally pursued by the exchange, which has its headquarters in Singapore, to reclaim the money.
However, the $10 million had already been invested in a multi-million dollar mansion in the Melbourne suburb of Craigieburn, equipped with a home cinema and gym, by the time Crypto.com recognized what had transpired.
The woman did not escape the situation easily. According to recent reports, a judge has mandated that their property be liquidated and the exchange money given back.
The court filings showed that Manivel had already transferred $10.1 million to a different joint account in addition to sending a separate amount of $430,000 to her daughter Raveena Viijan.
On February 7, Crypto.Com also sought freezing orders against Manivel’s bank account. Manivel had also given Malaysian resident Ms. Gangadory ownership of the residence in addition to the foregoing.
According to Alexander Tkachenko, CEO of asset tokenization platform VNX, Crypto.com will probably prevail in court because it is a well-known company, but this will serve as a warning to other businesses.
Even if random faults happen on most platforms, he noted, “this one is too expensive to overlook.”
In May 2021, when the bitcoin was trading at around $49,000, crypto lender BlockFi unintentionally deposited bitcoin worth millions of dollars into a number of customer accounts.
Inadvertently, staff processed payments in Bitcoin (BTC) rather than the stablecoin USDC. BlockFi stated in a tweet that some customers who took part in a trade offer would get incorrect bonus payments.
Now, Crypto.Com is suing Manivel and Ms. Gangadory to recover the $10 million that was repaid, along with interest.
The outlet further stated that although the exchange had filed a case with the Victorian Supreme Court in May 2021, the ruling had only now been made public.
Justice Elliot, who has been taking precedence over the court proceedings, rendered a decision directing Ms. Gangadory to sell her home and pay $1.35 million to Crypto.com in order to make up for the damages the exchange suffered.
