Approach a production. Episode four, Don't Be a Banker. I wanted to know if the NAB would make a comment on what happened with Dan. We'll get to what happened to him, how long he's spent in jail, and how it came tumbling down in the next few episodes. If you want to play catch up on the story so far, head back to the previous three.
Episodes, because yeah, I was planting a lot and my view was to win the money back. Eventually they were going to pull it up my day. Luck, they've got to be watching and big brother's watching him. I can't think probably weeks five, six, and seven, we're all light strategy.
Anyway, I called the NAB to see if they would make a comment. So I asked Dan, does he think after the glitch that the bank changed their process?
Bloody hope. So their motto at the time was more give less, take and they just like just hit that one out of the ballpark, didn't they.
There was a moment with the NAB where you were getting money out and something happened in the ATM that, you know, is one of those moments that you see or you think of and you go wow, that'd be a really great shot in the movie.
When depending on the branch. But when I'd walk away and there was there was windows, reflection in the windows would catch the NAB logo, and when you flip the NAB logo around, it says Dan, and it's kind of like, you know, it doesn't exactly say Dan, but it looks
like Dan from from just a first glance. I used to always just see it and just sort of shake my head like there was some kind of high power or something and just yeah over the situation, like it was almost a yeah, just like a message from someone else that was universe.
Dan was attracting attention and lots of attention from hangers on and people just wanting to be around him. I get the feeling. Although Dan's a pretty likable bloke, give him a wad of cash and some red Gucci shoes and he becomes like Dan the lady Killer.
Yeah, I was seeing. I was seeing a few women at the time. I would say most of the women I was seeing knew the situation for what it was, and it was pretty you know, it was fast money, like pretty average looking black. You know, I'm not no David Beckham here I'll give you an example. I felt like
David Beckham sometimes. A few of the boys used to have a nickname for me, Fat White CanYa, because like, all I wanted to do was go to nightclubs and get bottle service and stuff and just have a good time. I just wanted to like I just wanted to dance, Like I just wanted to have a good time. I just don't understand why. You know that's gone, you know,
that's seen. You sort of been extracted from a lot of people's lives, you know, like that kind of you know, like yeah, just you know, work the week and just you know, like there will be a better place if at the end of the week, like everyone just went to a dance party and just chill it out a bit. It's nothing I've ever experienced in my life, and I doubt that I have a will, But having experienced at once,
I don't think I really need to again. Like this girl walked out to me once, sup Like Megan, Girls like Megan Gail don't talk to danceaunders really Like they might say, Hi, excuse me, can you please move? I need to get to that other part of the store. They don't say, oh, they're not interested in me. Like, you know, it's fine with that before, but when some when you're getting this tension, it's very hard to turn
around and ignore it. I had a woman walk up to me who was twelve out of ten and say that she was unequivocally the person that was taking me home that night.
We're in this nightclub called East, which is a nightclub on the Gold Coast, and you know, she walks up and you know, she sort of said, I'm just gonna I'm just going to take her on to night.
I don't know who you are, but like what you what you're doing here? Like I love it? And you know, we're going to Negel and I'm just like, okay, it's great. That kind of attention had never happened to me before. So I was like, I was pretty I was pretty blown away by that. I knew that I wasn't the man that they thought I was, So you know, I used to take them out and buy them lots of great jewelry, and you know, whatever they wanted is to
buy women whatever they wanted. I was, Yeah, I was very much you know, of the knowing that it will end sometime. So you go home with the twelve out of ten. Absolutely, yeah, yeah, I mean.
Was that a long standing relationship?
I wouldn't call a long standing Whenever I was around whenever I was around the Gold Coast, I definitely saw each other.
There's been a fair bit written about Dan and his story. As I went searching for research on getting together the facts before we started the podcast, we found court records, lots of articles, and Dan supplied a whole bunch of things that we'll get to later.
In this episode.
For us, putting this podcast together wasn't to bash the bank. We'll let you make your own decisions on where you put your money. There was, however, some interesting info that we uncovered while looking through research. A few years back, a major publication was ready to buy Dan's story. They had engaged a writer and Dan had sat down, similar to our chat Telly story. That story was squashed and
we got to copy the email. Which shows why the email is between the writer and an editor at the publication.
Is an excerpt, Hey Jack, I've got bad news. The boss is killing this because it's just too hot. Nab happens to be one of our biggest accounts, and publishing this will just cause too many problems. I'm really sorry I didn't foresee this earlier. I literally had the article all ready to go and someone from client services picked up on the brand conflict. We are still going to process your invoice as a kill.
That story and the writer ended up being published in a UK paper, and then a few months later the Australian publisher grabbed a story again and ran.
The article.
For us.
Let's just raise a few questions. The big banks have big money and a story like this from Dan really does put a little doubt in your mind about how this could happen now and your money safe. We also learned of another bloke from New South Wales who was able to rip off a bank with a similar scam using his overdraft facility. We tried to get someone on from a bank, any bank, to give us their view. As you can imagine, no one would go on record. So let's move swiftly from the bank's no reply to
Dan's debauchery. What about hookers and escorts and those sorts of things that was that a thing for you?
Someone said, you know that in that movie A Pretty Woman Yep, And we're like, ah, it would be like to get like an escort to the to the hotel room and yeah, so we did it once and we're like there's a lot of messing around, like we can go to a bar and meet a lot of people, you know, like it's actually like a bit to organize, Like it's not it's not really fun to organize that. It was a good way at the time because I
didn't know how many other people. I thought I was going to get caught for this and sort of hold over the colt Like I sort of had a feeling like I was going to be in an interrogation room one day and they were going to ask, you know, who was with you? What was going on?
So I was like, ah, you know, I've got to have like a story.
I've got to tell people what I spent the money on it, because I can't say I gave it to other people because I've just got to say that. Like so I said that I just went to like one hundred you know, escorts, because they're like, oh, yeah, you know, like I can't prove it. If you go to a bar and you're shouting the whole bar, you don't need to go you don't need to call an escort, like you've got plenty of attention.
How would you coordinate?
Like the phone would be going off like okay. Afterwards, I had to throw the phone away because people are still ringing, like thinking I was still rich. I was like, oh, I've got to get rid of this phone. This is like not good because I've got to hang over anyway, and now these people are ringing me, going oh hey, Dan, are you free? Where are you? You know? Like like what about drugs?
That were they part.
Of the scene. My drug was the ATM. That was my drug. So I used to I used to dabble like if people. People would always ask me for money to buy drugs all the time, flat out, like I got bored. I was like, nah, there's a drug guy, Like if you want drugs, you go to that guy. I don't understand about drugs. I'm don't I'm not interest.
So you had a drug guy or there was just a drug guy in the in the scene.
There's always a drug guy around, yeah, you know, and they just floating around.
He should do to talk to yeah, but they were hitting you up for the cash to pay for it.
Yeah, yeah, I remember. I remember one night we were with a couple of couple of ladies and and they were in the they were in the hotel suite and they're like, oh, let's get some coke. Yeah, I want to get some coke. Like I've heard that, you know, Oh do you want to get some coke? Like about it a million times? Couldn't even any more boring.
The truth, right, coachs for people who were fucking boring, they need like an extra you know, zip just to make the night, you know, go well, you know, they go, oh, you know, we want to buy two bags, so we need you know, it's like late at night, so we need.
Like twelve hundred bucks. And I'm like, you know, I'm no, I'm not expert, but I know that twelve hundred bucks for two bags. It's like a lot of money. So I'm like, oh, yeah, yeah, twelve twelve hundred bucks. Yeah, sure, you go twelve hundred bucks. And they left to go downstairs, and I just rang downstairs and say, you know those
two people that left, Yeah, they're not coming back. I'd let people take the piss, like because ultimately I was, but I don't let them take the piss to a certain extent, like, you know, like if I knew something was like three hundred bucks and they asked him like
four hundred, I'd be like, yeah, cool. But if someone asked me for like double the price or something, because I just knew they were or you know, the casino was a big one for all the casino playing, and I just had one hundred dollars chips and I'd just hand him out the casino. So, you know, we'd just be walking through Crown or wherever I was jupid, you know,
like Jupiters or wherever I was. We'd we'd just walked through the casino and I'd just be handing out like black chips everywhere, just going, yeah, let's play, let's play. Oh you know Tom got a number? Yeah great, right, Yeah.
I knew when people were just coming up, but they weren't gambling like I was like, oh yeah, you know, so the next day we'd just go, we just leave, and you know, we'd just leave that person there and they'd be calling flood out, going oh you know guys, you know, and I'd be.
Like, nah, taking the piss, see you later. So who's in the who's in your main crew? How many people in that main crew that would go and crew?
Main crew is about four or five. Yeah. Yeah, Like my friends had like fly in fly out rolls, so so they were a part of it for a time. And then I'd go to another group of friends, or you know, I'd spend a couple of days with you know, a lady I just met, or I'd spent you know, like it was just all it was just all random.
And all quite fluid.
Then I'm guessing too, right, absolutely, Like at the height of it, we had hotel suites in every city, so we would just fly between the cities and the party would still be going on in the other hotel suites. So hotel suites not booked but actually paid for you no, no, no, so people were in them, okay, knew yeah, like or knew off yeah, and we'd move in between. Yeah. So ultimately we'd pay the bill of all three hotel suites, but we'd only be in one at one certain time.
Like most people, I've owed money before, I may have even had a call or two from a bank to ask if I'd forgotten to make a payment. Owing money makes you anxious, or at least it makes most people a little anxious. So how's Dan feeling owing one point six million bucks to the bank? They're starting to get anxious by this stage.
Yeah, absolutely, Like I knew that. I was like, I thought I was going to go to jail, Like someone's going to be watching this. I thought it was on The Truman Show or something like someone had to be watching. Like I have dreams and stuff like I remember waking up in the middle of the night in a hotel suite at the Chambrila and I was like dreaming that the SWAT team was outside in a position three and four and about to burst in. You know, I don't know whether SPAT team is going to come because I
was like using my ATM card like a madman. But anyway, the SWAT team is there and they said, oh look, you know, they said, you know, please open up. And I'm like, oh, you know, like this is it. And then the door burst open and that's when the dream ended. And I was like, I wake up in a pool of sweat and then the doorbell goes and I'm like.
Oh, dreamt it like sick, this is it? And so how I opened up the door and there's this little lady there. She says, would you like some fresh towls? And I said, you know what, I will have some fresh dows because I'm sweating like an absolute.
Monster, and she goes, are you all right, sir? Okay, Yeah, I'm okay, but thanks for bringing the towels. So I'd be absolutely wide right. So I'd go for I at a routine where I'd go for like day spa every morning just to cleanse, you know, sweat it out, get in the sauna. It was big, Like every night was massive. So I was like, it's very much a cleansing period in the morning, get a massage wherever I was, hot rocks,
all that kind of stuff. The lady I'd go down there with so much anxiety, like the messseuse was like are you Like, are you okay? I'm like, well, yeah, like I'm fine, but she said, you're obviously not fine. I'm like, no, I'm not really fine, but but don't tell anyone I'm not fine because I'm fine. I'm good. It was okay. Yeah, it was starting to get like physical symptoms of being quite quite anxious. But I learned,
you know, for being anxious. I was down in the lobby once and I felt like I was going to have a heart attack, and this doctor comes over and he says, oh, you're all right, and I said, I don't feel well at all. And he said, I don't think you're having a heart attack, but I think you could be having an anxiety attack. And he said, you know, is there any stress going on in your life? I'm like, yeah,
a fair bit. And he's like, well, that could be a direct result of distress, you know, like maybe better, you know, try and take it easy. And he gave me. He gave me like a script for some valium. And it's very nice, I said. The reception, I said, make sure he's send a bottle of champagne to his room, because he's a good blow. So I worked out that, you know, I had anxiety because you know, like I have palpitations in my chest and stuff and you know, but all masked with a you know, like you you
can mask it all with a bottle of polish. To Winston Churchill, that's sort the anxiety, right, you know what I mean. I learned how to manage it. Like I didn't become addictive valium or anything. Like. I had a few valuum here and there just to just to calm things down. But yeah, I sort of learned how to how to deal with it. And I just got myself into a bit of a bit of a rhythm. After that, I'm just spending more money that I earn in a year in a day. So literally all day, every day,
I'm just giving money away. If I went out for lunch, be a massive tip, I'd pay for another table as well. Or we'd rent houses. So the Yarrow Valley in Melbourne, we ran like this massive house, drove around to all the hired a mini bus, drove around to all the different backpackers around town, and just decided to have a backpacker party at the estate in the Yarraw Valley. Hi you DJ. Everyone set it up, you know, all that kind of thing. Put it in just ways that we
could offload. Cash just came flowing through. So I remember I was walking past Via Wang the bridle shop in the Intercontinental and Sydney, and the lady I was with said, oh, you know, I wish I could afford you know, I wish I could have a dress like that for my wedding. Let's buy it. Let's buy it right now. And so we just went and bought it straight off the rack. And then I just had a suit and we just went out and pretended we just got married, then people
buy our strings. It was just constantly just like little just little things like that, just over and over, camp like it just I think I loved the glitch more than anything else. Like I didn't. I wasn't really feeling like the power of the money was grabbing me. I didn't really like I can take or leave the money. I didn't really care about it. But it's more what the money could do. It'd take like the average situation and just turn it into something unbelievable. And that's the
bit that I loved about it. I became addicted to shouting people's stuff, like just going I'll get that. It was in the Terrace restaurant at Flemington race Course, buying bottles of don Peranion like they're going out of fashion. Hey what are you doing? Come and have a drink with us, you know, just just getting everyone in on the ride and answering the phone and saying, yep, it was me, it's me.
And that phone call was the nab, just checking that you just bought everyone.
I bought the Dom Flemington.
That anxiety that you were having. That was that about the glitch? Ending was it about going to jail?
I think it's it wasn't purely conscious because I had people around me, like I was, like, the only people are being it's a bank and that's the reason why it all started and like that, and it kept going like that because it was like, you've got an opportunity, like what would the bank do in your situation? The bank could sink the sink the heels in. So that's what we've got to do. We owe it to the world to stick our heels in because we can right now,
because that's the only way you get it. And that doesn't make it right, but that's ultimately what we were doing. So that's you know, that was the rush. Now, that's how we got That's how I got through it. That's how I kept setting the alarm kept going. And also you know, women who were twelve out of teen coming up and telling me that they were going to take them home tonight. But that's that's something that's hard to walk away from at times.
Dan, did you think you were doing something wrong? Did you think you were being doing something illegal at this stage?
Absolutely you did. Yeah, Like I knew it was illegal for sure. I mean, you can tell yourself whatever you want to tell yourself. I mean, you know, I felt bad about it. I used to feel bad about it, but since the Royal Commission and seeing their conduct and how they are, like, I felt less bad about it, that's for sure. I feel like there's one guy that's like it was his job, like to make sure that
you couldn't transfer money that you didn't have. Felt like he probably won't have a job anymore, and like I feel bad about that. You know, someone told me once like you took money off the shareholders. I was like, well, the shareholders just in on the hustle. Like if you buy shares in something and you know what their conduct is and you can sleep well at night, they're good
on you. But blokes like me, and there's a lot of us who if there's an inch, we'll take it, you know, because we don't necessarily think that the system is the most amazing thing in the world. There's people out there who were playing the game just like me, who if they had a chance to do something like this, they absolutely would because they contact me every day. I know exactly.
I don't understand why people who are in control are in control, Like why is finance and you know banks, why are they in so much control, like the people that should be in control. Truck is like if you like stopped your truck in the middle of the highway, the world stops, then you're in control and you go, Okay, this is how much I want to drive a truck, right, And everyone asked to go, yeah, okay, we'll give it to you. Because they're literally blocking everything from getting to anyone.
I don't understand how Bezos is so rich. He's got to have people to drive.
All the stuff around for it. Like what if everyone just stops driving and goes, oh, hey, you know what, I'd like an extra hundred grand a year, what's he gonna do? Say? No, get together sort of air, you.
Want to start a movement? Absolutely, So from what Dan's saying, he knows he was doing something wrong. He knew he was going to jail, but he was in too deep and in his mind he was doing what some of the richest people in the world were doing. But he was just on the wrong side of the law.
In any good clique, there's like there's moments of so I said to you the first night we went to the city, I caught the train. So so then from the train it goes to cabs, cabs everywhere. Then we're like, well, we're wearing all these nice clothes, we should be getting limos, so let's get a limo. And then once you start a limo, then limos it's an awesome like because we were drinking all the time, so you know, we hired a few sports cars and stuff like that, but it
wasn't like it wasn't amazing. It was fine. You know, like I don't really I don't really get the whole car thing, but I know a lot of people do that. It's fair enough. You know a lot of my friends were like, oh, you know, we should run a Ferrari and we should do this and do that. And I was like, yeah, yeah we can. We can go and do it. Like it's cool, but it's not really it's not really my thing. I think it's a six foot four like you know kind of thing. It's like it
doesn't really work and stuff like that. Anyway, like, yeah.
So.
We'd go, you know, we go in limos a lot, and then we'd know the limo drivers, and then from knowing the limo drivers, then we'd strike up you know, friendship with you know, we we we're like, oh, did you know, you can get a helicopter from Sydney Airport to like the city. We're like, oh, that's great, it can beat the traffic. Awesome. Perfect. So we started doing that and then we start meeting you know, chopper pilots, and we start meeting pilots and we start a network
basically because we'd always just go pay cash. Cash is king. People love that. People were like, oh, that's great. So we get Yeah, we get people to you know, if we're going to like the house in the Ara Valley, if we're kind of the house in the Ara Valley, we'd get chopper from the top of you know, one of the buildings in Melbourne and take us right there. Perfect, fifteen minutes. Great, you know, don't have to sit in
a limo for an hour and a half. We're learning sort of how the rich get around and it's and it's fun. I mean, we went in a I remember we went in a private jet from Melbourne to Sydney and the pilot told us that the whole plane had a parachute. And we're like, yeah, yeah, planes got parachutes or whatever, and he's like, no, no, no, the whole plane's got a parachute. So like if we run into trouble,
like we'll just glide to the ground. Yeah, we just sort of learned, you know, sort of stuff like that. And then yeah, it all sort of culminated in the biggest thing we did in regards to that was go to like this island. We the met the pilot just through a chopic pilot. He said, look, eighty grand all inclusive, like he had, you know, he knew the people at the island or something. He said, we drive you, it
will fly you in there, fly you out. And I said, look, you know, I've learned that I don't actually need to do the transfers on Friday, Saturday and Sunday night because the bank doesn't update their systems on those nights. So I could actually go away for the weekend, I think. So we went away for the weekend Friday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, just told people just had a you know, like the whole resort to ourselves.
Where was the island?
I had no idea. Somewhere near Bali maybe, like it took about about six hours to get there.
You're a private yet, right, Yeah, okay, you're not asking where you're going.
Oh no, I didn't care. I was like, no worries, Yeah, sure.
I find it really interesting. For every debaucherous story of drugs and girls and dom and horrible Gucci shoes, there are stories of these giving moments. You'll remember Evano told us an episode two that Dan would give his own shirt off his back. There was one story that I kept seeing in research and articles when I started looking at the damn story, and it was this story of a woman who wanted to learn French.
Beautiful woman, really really nice woman and like still she's married with kids now, and how did you meet her? Oh? We just how do you mean anyone? Like I didn't even know. She was just appeared. She was just there and yeah, like we just hit it off. And it was never anything like it was never anything sexual or anything like that, but we just, yeah, we just sort of hit it off with you both, you know, had the same had the same sense of humor and a
massive on sense of humor. Like it's very important, you know. Like we started chatting and and she I said, what is your dream? Like what do you want to do with your life? And she's like, well, you know, she was from somewhere like one turner, like out of suburb like Melbourne, the soul of the earth stuff. And she's just like, well, I'm at the moment because it's my dream to go to France and I want to study French, but I want to do it at a French university
in Paris. I'm like, oh, that's great. She's like yeah, but I don't have the money, so I'm working, you know, well worse so I can get the money to do that. And I said, what are you going to do while you're over there, like where you're going to live and stuff? And she's like, oh, well, I want to be an all pair so I want to go and look after people's kids, usually wealthy people's kids, and I want to stay there while I'm right. And I said, wow, if you find yourself an all pair position, you can go
whenever you want, however much it takes. I'll take your shopping. We can go out. We can buy luggage, we can buy cameras, we can buy jackets. It's like freezing over there, isn't it. We can buy everything you need for your trip. You just find that right, that all pair position, and then you ring me. She's like, I don't believe you for ship and I'm like, yeah, I'm full of shit. I'm like, I'm standing here with like a thirty thousand dollars role exit. I'm full of shit. Yeah, absolutely, like
believe what you want to believe. And she's like okay, right, and I'm like, and then call this number you gave him. Tell me about like four days later, rings and stairs, Dan, I found found a position. There's an old pair. I'm like, okay, great, so you need to work out how much the tuition is. She's like I already know. I'm like, okay, we'll pay your tuition, we'll pay for the university, we'll pay for you know, your everything. You go over there, will go shopping.
And then I flew with her to the Sydney Consulate and then then she left, Yeah, went to France to study.
Have you been in contact?
Since it's all I've only seen it. I've only seen it on Facebook. But I'm not really like, like, you know, it really was no strings attached. You know, it really was. And that's not to be like I'm not not trying to be a hero or anything, but it was just a situation. And I was like, you know what, I can give people things that they would work for years to get, you know, and I can give it to them right now, and you know what, that feels awesome. That's awesome thing to do. I really love doing that,
and I'm going to get right behind that. And otherwise I didn't have a clue what I was doing. If you're wealthy, you sort of almost don't really know who your friends are, like if you've got if you haven't got much money, you really know who your friends are. And you know, I'm not saying you know, I'm poor or wealthy. I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is
that having so much money comes at a cost. Like everyone sort of seen mainly want something from you and only talks to you because you know they they want something out of the out of the situation. Like it's like an equation all the time. But with like friends now, it's not, it's not an equation. I mean, it is what it is. And you know, no one's friends with me because you know, you know they can you know, they're financially better off or you can get them further
in life. They're just friends with me because they like me and they want to be around me. And it doesn't it doesn't really matter to them the way, and that's the people you want in your life.
Was it ever lonely for you?
No, it wasn't lonely like I always had, always had people around. But I guess my I guess my predicament was. My predicament was lonely. You only live once. We're only in this you know, you know you're in this world at this time for once. So it's like, well, why not just focus on experience. I mean, you never know when you're going to die anyway. I mean it's it's not a known thing, so it's like, why would you
take it too seriously? I mean, my approach to life would be a lot different if it didn't end.
Some people say money is a curse.
Was it a curse for you? No, No, not at all. I don't think it was. I think I learned a lot about the world. I think i'd just be I think now if that didn't happen, I'd probly be married with a couple of kids, and there's nothing wrong with that. But I would have never I wouldn't have really questioned anything. I mean, if you've just got a job, you can't expect to be rich, Like if you want to be.
If you want to be wealthy, you've got to go and quit your job right now and live really hard for a few years and work to solve a problem of the world. That's the way. And work for yourself. There's no future in working for someone else you want to be wealthy. But you know, I'm over the opinion. Like everyone everyone goes crazy about money, Like I don't know, maybe I've got it out of my system, but it's not. It's not something that, yeah, I get, I get excited about anymore.
In the next episode of the Glitch, it all starts to come crashing down.
You know, anyone could sort of walk up and go, hey, damn you know I want to do this, can you give me some money to do it? And most people were like, Dan, I want to dare the two girls at the bar to like kiss, and I have five hundred bucks to do it? Drinking a lot of alcohol all the time. It sort of got to him a little bit, and I could see the pressure was done to get to him. He was a bit more moody. You get angry really quickly. Whatever people did with their
little bit of the money, that's fine. But apparently he bought you know, some bitcoin when it wasn't worth very much, and now it's obviously worth knowing what I know now. But I could have actually just walked away from this and nothing would have happened to close my mind, even more than the fact that I, you know, sort of brought about my own demise in a way