TikTok viral “infinite money glitch”

[eyesonthehorizon]

Apparently someone noticed there weren’t holds on recently deposited checks... uploaded a tutorial... and other people uploaded themselves trying it.

I can’t even laugh at this one, I just got faint. Ramifications of not teaching anything about the money system at home or in school.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/03/business/chase-tiktok-trend/index.html

[JAYSLOL]

That’s about what I expect from the place where people show themselves stealing Kia’s and climbing piles of milk crates until they fall and break their necks. 

[Sibley]

They're going to learn the hard way, with check fraud charges. Is that FBI or Secret Service?

[eyesonthehorizon]

They're going to learn the hard way, with check fraud charges. Is that FBI or Secret Service?

I actually had no idea the secret service was involved in financial crime investigation until you mentioned that, but I’d bet it starts with state governments because the jurisdiction determines the line at which it becomes a felony.

I found a more in depth article covering this & other social media financial “hacks” & some of why people fall for it. This line was what I had in mind when it came to lacking family & formal financial education for young folks -

With the proliferation of digital banking and personal finance apps, it has become easier to download an app, open an account with a financial institution, and start making some pretty consequential money-related decisions. There’s a sense in which much of our financial transactions and systems don’t quite feel grounded in reality — money isn’t cold hard cash, it’s a number displayed in an app.

https://www.vox.com/money/369894/chase-bank-glitch-tiktok-fraud-free-money

[Tasse]

I found a more in depth article covering this & other social media financial “hacks” & some of why people fall for it. This line was what I had in mind when it came to lacking family & formal financial education for young folks -

With the proliferation of digital banking and personal finance apps, it has become easier to download an app, open an account with a financial institution, and start making some pretty consequential money-related decisions. There’s a sense in which much of our financial transactions and systems don’t quite feel grounded in reality — money isn’t cold hard cash, it’s a number displayed in an app.

https://www.vox.com/money/369894/chase-bank-glitch-tiktok-fraud-free-money

Yeah, this was reflected for me in the name "infinite money glitch." Plenty of video games have them, and what is your bank app but another video game to win? /s

[Sibley]

They're going to learn the hard way, with check fraud charges. Is that FBI or Secret Service?

I actually had no idea the secret service was involved in financial crime investigation until you mentioned that, but I’d bet it starts with state governments because the jurisdiction determines the line at which it becomes a felony.

I found a more in depth article covering this & other social media financial “hacks” & some of why people fall for it. This line was what I had in mind when it came to lacking family & formal financial education for young folks -

With the proliferation of digital banking and personal finance apps, it has become easier to download an app, open an account with a financial institution, and start making some pretty consequential money-related decisions. There’s a sense in which much of our financial transactions and systems don’t quite feel grounded in reality — money isn’t cold hard cash, it’s a number displayed in an app.

https://www.vox.com/money/369894/chase-bank-glitch-tiktok-fraud-free-money

I know the SS gets involved when there's a hack/ransom attack at a school district (sigh, my audit client). And I know the SS is involved with counterfeit money. But check fraud might go FBI. And honestly, it might go straight to the FBI because they handle interstate, and the check clearing process is almost always going to cross state lines.

I have to explain what checks are and how they work to each new staff at work. Not surprised that people don't understand how it works.

[NorthernIkigai]

Even if you don't understand how it works, surely even young people still know the difference between X amount of money being theirs and it not being theirs?

My offspring are young and don't have TikTok, but some of their friends and even younger kids at school do. This whole "hack" and "wouldn't it be possible to do a scam like this" thinking is seeping into their thinking as well. It's so annoying! Use your brains for something actually creative and constructive, not for watching other people talk really fast about fake hacks.

[Fomerly known as something]

They're going to learn the hard way, with check fraud charges. Is that FBI or Secret Service?

Either or both.

[Morning Glory]

They're going to learn the hard way, with check fraud charges. Is that FBI or Secret Service?

Either or both.

If the amount was big enough,  maybe. When bad checks were more common it used to be county jail and/ or getting your name and photo posted up at convenience stores.

[eyesonthehorizon]

Even if you don't understand how it works, surely even young people still know the difference between X amount of money being theirs and it not being theirs?

My offspring are young and don't have TikTok, but some of their friends and even younger kids at school do. This whole "hack" and "wouldn't it be possible to do a scam like this" thinking is seeping into their thinking as well. It's so annoying! Use your brains for something actually creative and constructive, not for watching other people talk really fast about fake hacks.

This is the part I’m stuck on. I worry that effectively living in really controlled environments, both in person & online, of only purpose-built systems is warping kids’ thinking to default to a metric of “if it’s possible, it’s essentially allowed,” sort of an exacerbation of the idea that locks keep honest people honest: that if there’s not already a rule against it, then it follows it must be acceptable conduct.

In addition to conditioning very lazy consequential thinking/ lack of moral engagement, it also rapidly increases the rate of rules-proliferation, devaluing rules generally & increasing the odds of bycatch. Worrying trend as we face a boom in novel technologies with new ways to do harm - compare Cambridge Analytica or other big data organizations trying to plead innocence of the law when the intent was clearly unethical. You can pretty quickly draw any number of ad absurdum conclusions for the idea that a lack of precedent makes a bad actor inculpable.

But that IS how we are treating corporate actors, who are comprised of fully grown adults with legal & ethics teams, so I’m reluctant to put the blame squarely on kids just emerging into adulthood following suit. Even on these boards from time to time someone (usually not long-timers) will suggest flouting tax law with the position that fraud is only fraud if you get caught. There’s a wide absent culture of accountability that needs attention, but when major public figures receive endless indulgences & the reward of celebrity for decades of public criminal behavior, we’re absolutely failing to lead them by example.

[GuitarStv]

I was hoping that the dumbest would already be weeded out from eating tide pods.

[twinstudy]

I really enjoy the 'influencer' content on TikTok and Instagram because it very quickly separates those with good judgment and work ethic from those who like to chase scams and shortcuts. I'd like to see more of this, as it is an effective Darwinian mechanism.

[NorthernIkigai]

I really enjoy the 'influencer' content on TikTok and Instagram because it very quickly separates those with good judgment and work ethic from those who like to chase scams and shortcuts. I'd like to see more of this, as it is an effective Darwinian mechanism.

This may be true for grownups (although as with many idiotic ideas such as the incel movement, unfortunately it affects others too, not just the people getting directly influenced). But in practice it’s preteens who are watching this crap, and their good judgment and work ethic are still in development, however good their upbringing and other non-TikTok influences.

[twinstudy]

I really enjoy the 'influencer' content on TikTok and Instagram because it very quickly separates those with good judgment and work ethic from those who like to chase scams and shortcuts. I'd like to see more of this, as it is an effective Darwinian mechanism.

This may be true for grownups (although as with many idiotic ideas such as the incel movement, unfortunately it affects others too, not just the people getting directly influenced). But in practice it’s preteens who are watching this crap, and their good judgment and work ethic are still in development, however good their upbringing and other non-TikTok influences.

That's a matter for the parents, who should be either restricting screentime/content or instilling good values in the children. Also, how many preteens are writing cheques?

I'd like to think any smart 10- or 11-year old would be able to use critical thinking skills to tell what is real and what is fake. If you can understand algebra/geometry, you can sniff out instagram BS.

[NorthernIkigai]

I was referring to the influences and TikTok et al in general (in the same post, even), not this particular video…

[Morning Glory]

I really enjoy the 'influencer' content on TikTok and Instagram because it very quickly separates those with good judgment and work ethic from those who like to chase scams and shortcuts. I'd like to see more of this, as it is an effective Darwinian mechanism.

This may be true for grownups (although as with many idiotic ideas such as the incel movement, unfortunately it affects others too, not just the people getting directly influenced). But in practice it’s preteens who are watching this crap, and their good judgment and work ethic are still in development, however good their upbringing and other non-TikTok influences.

That's a matter for the parents, who should be either restricting screentime/content or instilling good values in the children. Also, how many preteens are writing cheques?

I'd like to think any smart 10- or 11-year old would be able to use critical thinking skills to tell what is real and what is fake. If you can understand algebra/geometry, you can sniff out instagram BS.

I wish that last paragraph were true.  I know nurses who are anti-vaxxers and an engineer who is a climate change denier. I even met a doctor once who was in denial that HIV causes AIDS. These are all people with bachelor degree or higher.  Being bright at math does not mean you are good at anything else.

[twinstudy]

It wasn't so much that being bright at maths means you can understand everything else (I cited 10- or 11-year old maths standards, so not a high maths level), more that the basics of rationality are there for anyone who doesn't have a mental disability to understand. If the people in your example want to believe wild hypotheses it's their right to do it and it's society's right to punish them accordingly. I know plenty of anti-vaxxers who lost their job during covid (because they didn't get the jab) and some of them took years to get their jobs back. Serves them right.

[eyesonthehorizon]

... If the people in your example want to believe wild hypotheses it's their right to do it and it's society's right to punish them accordingly. ...

Leaving aside all the rest of your position, is there anything you propose we do to adapt when critical masses of voters elect leaders - in absolutely every party, there’s no monopoly on stupid politicians - who themselves lack the basics of rationality to draw judgements from scientific evidence or the sense to listen to those who can? We’re reaching the FO in FAFO on multiple fronts, so it’s not a theoretical question.

Other people being easily misled does en masse become everyone’s problem - in your example, some of those antivaxxers lost their jobs, but to look at 2023 vaccine uptake rates, that’s a won battle in a lost war (unless something changes.)

If stupid were going to go extinct it would have, so cheering it on when people tie up productive manhours, waste resources, hurt or kill each other, damage the economy & environment etc. just because they’re themselves in the blast radius of their own mistakes seems like emotional cold comfort, not a rational strategy. Fewer people suffering from self-inflicted trouble is no steep price to pay for everyone being spared suffering from those people’s trouble.

[twinstudy]

All of the things you referred to can be avoided by enacting laws which, as far as possible, protect the common good. The easiest way to do it is sin taxes. People may like smoking, and gambling, and emitting carbon, and we should let them do it, subject to punitive taxes.

Only in the case or extreme legislative failure would this come unstuck - and we're not there yet. For example, regarding the covid vaccine, two simple solutions exist: 1) make working in most jobs contingent on being jabbed (that's what we did in Australia and it worked wonders); 2) withdraw healthcare from those who refuse to be jabbed. Either way, it becomes a self-limiting problem.

In most cases, there is a way to deal with stupid behaviour which internalises most of the problems. The way we treat smoking and playing the lottery is one such example. There are also positive steps that can be taken, i.e. carrots instead of sticks.

[TheGrimSqueaker]

There was a spate of this in Canada 30+ years ago: people would deposit empty envelopes and then withdraw a portion of the cash that had been credited to their accounts.

The Big Five (Royal, CIBC, Toronto Dominion, Bank of Montreal, and Scotia) and the credit unions put a stop to that pretty quickly. They did it by putting a mandatory hold on deposits until the envelopes could be opened (for cash) or until the check cleared. Money that was already in a person's account could of course be accessed, but the account wasn't credited until the transfer was confirmed. It cut down on check kiting schemes too.

How is this even a problem, decades later? Is Chase just that slow of a learner? I know the US banking system is thirty or forty years behind the times due to how it grew organically without much central planning, but this is more embarrassing than usual.

[Sibley]

There was a spate of this in Canada 30+ years ago: people would deposit empty envelopes and then withdraw a portion of the cash that had been credited to their accounts.

The Big Five (Royal, CIBC, Toronto Dominion, Bank of Montreal, and Scotia) and the credit unions put a stop to that pretty quickly. They did it by putting a mandatory hold on deposits until the envelopes could be opened (for cash) or until the check cleared. Money that was already in a person's account could of course be accessed, but the account wasn't credited until the transfer was confirmed. It cut down on check kiting schemes too.

How is this even a problem, decades later? Is Chase just that slow of a learner? I know the US banking system is thirty or forty years behind the times due to how it grew organically without much central planning, but this is more embarrassing than usual.

No, they do place a hold. Just not all of the hold. It'll probably get tightened up after this.

[sonofsven]

There was a spate of this in Canada 30+ years ago: people would deposit empty envelopes and then withdraw a portion of the cash that had been credited to their accounts.

The Big Five (Royal, CIBC, Toronto Dominion, Bank of Montreal, and Scotia) and the credit unions put a stop to that pretty quickly. They did it by putting a mandatory hold on deposits until the envelopes could be opened (for cash) or until the check cleared. Money that was already in a person's account could of course be accessed, but the account wasn't credited until the transfer was confirmed. It cut down on check kiting schemes too.

How is this even a problem, decades later? Is Chase just that slow of a learner? I know the US banking system is thirty or forty years behind the times due to how it grew organically without much central planning, but this is more embarrassing than usual.

I think that part of the mindset behind people doing this is that if the bank is this stupid, they deserve to get scammed.

[TheGrimSqueaker]

I think that part of the mindset behind people doing this is that if the bank is this stupid, they deserve to get scammed.

As much as I approve of karma biting Chase in the rear for its myriad predatory offenses against innocent people, it's not much of a scam if the scammers don't get away with it.

The bank has the thief's name, Social Security number, address, and possibly video evidence from the ATM. The negative balance (and associated fees) will remain until money hits the account for any reason (such as an auto-deposited paycheck or tax refund), and the deduction will be instant. Also, banks talk to each other and share information.

Pathetically, that makes the would-be scammer even stupider than Chase, which is really saying something in this case. I'd hate to think about what they deserve for their stupidity, although they're probably receiving it as we speak and I think the consequences will harm them more than their actions harmed Chase.