Free money frenzy

Approache Production Episode two, Free Money Frenzy. Dan Saunders is no criminal mastermind. He's a normal aszy bloke who happened to find a glitch on his ATM card and used it to borrow one point six million dollars in cash.

I'm gonna probably go to jail now for what I'm doing. Let's really test this glitch out. Let's take the Ferrari for a drive.

In the last episode, we left Anne at a tiny little bar in Country Victoria after transferring two grand from his credit card to his savings account and then taking the cash out and heading home to go to bed half drunk with a bunch of cash in his wallet. That's not his Dan wakes up. You wake up after your transaction, your first transaction. You've got your wallet on your bedside table with nineteen hundred odd dollars in it. And what do you do? Do You go back to work?

Yeah?

I mean it wasn't It wasn't life changing money, was it. I mean it was you know, it was.

Money for a new fridge and a few boobs and.

Bobs and yeah, no, I seriously just thought I'd pay it, you know, I just pay it back. I thought it'll just be yeah, it'll be down in my in my savings account.

And I'll just have to pay it back, you know. That's it.

So I didn't really think much of it, like it wasn't really you know, it wasn't a heap of money, and I thought, well, yeah, I mean it was my card and it was my account, so you know, i'd only put myself into into debt. I thought, yeah, So I just went back to work. Yeah, I went back to you know, I think I had them shift or something, same regular, the same everything, nothing.

Different really at work. Yeah.

Then I left and I remember I walked down the street and I got a balance at it. I think it was like eleven PM over the balance at my savings car. I was two grand down on my savings account for some reason, like at the time it didn't register, but it had been it must have been. Twenty four hour period goes past, and then in between twelve and one I can make another transfer before it gets reversed, so before the previous one gets reversed.

I didn't know this at the time.

I can do a transfer any time between twelve and one am and that'll be honored for twenty four hours.

Or until the bank checks over again.

But the next day I can do another transfer, and then it'll take another day to click over. So basically, are you covering if I stay in front?

Okay? So if I transfer, If I.

Say I've spent twenty thousand dollars and I transfer forty thousand dollars, then the next night or the next day in there will be twenty thousand dollars. Right, So I've spent twenty, transferred forty, still got twenty. So basically I just needed to keep track of how much that i'd spent.

And I guess that's easy when you first start.

For sure. Yeah, yeah, it was easy at the start.

As Dan tells me this part of the story, I can see it happening. I reckon in my younger day, I've overdrawn my credit card and used the cash and knowing that I'd have to pay it back at some point. I actually think I've done it a few times, take money out, small amounts like one hundred bucks. The credit card goes into the red and next time you try to take cash out it doesn't work, and a few days later you get a note or a call from the bank saying, hey, you're overdrawn, you need to bring

It was probably like maybe one or two nights after that. I'd spent pretty much all the money. I was punting a little bit of it and was shouting most of the beers. So I went to the ATM and tried to get Actually I think I ran a phone.

Back, Welcome to NAB for phone banking, Press one to speak to one of our bank. Please enter your NAB identification.

And I was like, what the balance? And the balance was minus nineteen ninety seven in my in my savings caump. So I was like, yeah, that's all right. There was three dollars in there and I spent two. I transferred two grands.

So that's right.

So I got a balance on my credit card, and my credit card was the same. It was like it was it was the balance of what it would have been previously like without anything out of it. So I think it was like nineteen hundred and eighty used of the two thousand dollars limit or something like that. Piece by piece, I'm starting to sort of put the puzzle together of what is sort of happening.

I'm like, well, what if you could do that again?

And I just sort of entertained the idea in my mind and I was like, yeah, tonight after work, I'm going to go and see if I can do that again.

But what time did I do it? First? About quarter past twelve ten past twelve.

I went and I put my card in and I selected transfer and I selected from master Card to savings, and I said how much how much you want to transfer? It asked, and I said I'd like to transfer two thousand dollars, And so the same thing happened, which was encouraging transaction. Canceled card comes out. Then I'm like okay, So then I put the card back in. I want to get a balance on my savings.

Savings count balance three bucks.

So I'm like, okay, you've cleared the debt, right, the debt's cleared, and now I'm starting to learn how you do it. I'm like, okay, I can just okay it doesn't exist, and probably the same thing is going to happen if I spend, if I transfer another thousand and then spend another thousand, which why I did so right then, Right then I transferred another two because I knew I could get a thousand on each card, so I transferred another two, so then there was two in the savings account.

In the morning, right.

The account it was down to because I took two thousand dollars out, so it was down to three dollars again. So basically it was the next night that the transfers would transpire that they'd cross back over.

So it was it was like a twenty four hour period. So you make a transaction, but although you can get the money into your savings account, it's not registering on your credit card.

No, for twenty four hours.

Yeah, so get twenty four hours grace, yeah, to try.

And would actually only ever registered when you got money out, so when the money was down, So I was taking the money out of the savings account at that point, so that account would go down, but the transfer from the credit card to the savings account would never even register.

As happening.

It's nuts, isn't it Moving cash he didn't have from his credit card to his savings account, and then withdrawing that cash. Then twenty four hours later the credit card shows the cash he's withdrawn, but by then he spent it. I got so many questions, Why didn't the bank call him straight away? Why didn't he just stop? Does it still work now?

So then I waited and I started like I started standing on one leg a lot, which which just means checking your balance, Okay. I started checking my balance flat out on the on the phone, banking like all day every day.

I was like, on it, please your identify.

I didn't know at the time, but you know, subconsciously, I was sort of learning exactly what happened at which times and all the rest of it. The account. So the next day, the account stays the same. A monitor at twelve o'clock it's the same, and then at one am it's the same. And then I fall asleep and I ring up again, and then at six o'clock in the morning it's all the transfers have reversed, and the savings account's gone down. Now it's down by four thousand.

And it's fair to say you're not some criminal mastermind.

Right Well, I think you can tell just by listening to.

So this was like a made up story by you know, Jay from the in Between?

Yeah, yeah, yeah one you me and mate took a peddler out or we went to Africa.

Do you think you would spare us the bullshit for one minute?

There's people looking right now going, oh this you know, this guy's full of shit? Yeah, fair enough, Like, no problem, I understand, you know, but if I didn't live it, I wouldn't believe it either.

Yeah.

From that first Tuesday night through to call it a week after, how much you did taken out or transferred?

See, I was just doing you know, I say, just there's still a lot of money, Like I was taking out one thousand dollars on each card at this point, I didn't really know what I had. I mean, I was just transferring a little bit more each day to keep the accounts in credit all the time because I worked out.

How to do it.

But ultimately I didn't really like I wasn't really going for the you know, the kill, so to speak.

I wasn't like, oh, you know, I can.

I eventually worked out that I could just transfer, Like I could transfer six figures at a time on an ATM, so I could transfer nine hundred and ninety nine thousand dollars at a time. And you know, in fact, months later I did transfer, you know, three lots of nine hundred thousand, just to see what had happened. And then you go in and check the balance and it's like two point seven millions.

So you can't take that out through an ATM.

No, you can't take it out through an ATM. But then I'm getting more curious as I go along. What you know, this first two weeks, I'm like, what if what does the bank think? Like what is the lady at the teller think?

When I go in there, you're checking, you're standing on one leg, as you say, you're checking your account balance like more than daily. How you're feeling?

Yeah, well, I thought that I had discovered the greatest trick in the world.

Like I thought it.

Was like one of those let's choose your own adventure books, you know, like it was like, if you keep making transfers at the ATM, turn to page seventy three, you know, if you don't want to do it, just go home, you know, like great, you know, it seemed like I don't know, it seemed like there wasn't any other option.

Other to explore. Is there any guilt?

Not really not at this point, I'm.

Like an anxiety, it's too new, it's too fresh. Any anxiety, little bit, but more.

Excitement, more like what's this, sort of like let's let's explore this.

Like every pseudo criminal mastermind, you need a plan, the strategy, that one idea that means you can get away with the crime of the century. And Dan had a plan, not the great plan, but a plan all the same. Tell me about your strategic plan.

Well, well, you got to have money to make money, right, Yeah, And yeah, we knew a couple of you know, a couple of horse trainers at the at the end, you know, got a few tips here and there, and yeah, a few of them lost. And suddenly I was in sort of a bit too deep with the punting. It started this sort of snowballed into this bit of a punting sort of trying to win the money, backing to win more money.

So you're taking money out of a bank. It's not your money, Yeah, it's in my name, but it's in your name, might defense so yeah, yeah, true, your honor however, and then then you're thinking to pay back that debt that is accruing on your savings account, which is your debt. You're gonna have to pay it at some point in your mind. At this point, you're thinking, the best option here is to back number three at Wangaratta and hopefully it gets up.

Yeah.

Well it wasn't you know, it wasn't a solid plan, but it was planned nonetheless.

I mean it was. It was.

It was something that you know, all the you know, the workers at the pub and everyone at the pub you know, would sort of watch the races on a Saturday afternoon, you know, so it was sort of like, well, if we can, if we can try and get out of this, like you know, so I was you know, first I was, you know, five grand in debt, and then I was, you know, ten grand in debt, and then you know, I just kept going every night, So I mean the first within twelve nights, I probably spent

The peers and stuff. Bulls became pretty good customer at the Bullshead.

But that was the thinking behind it, was like, because I didn't think it was gonna I didn't even know what it was really. I knew that I could transfer money and get money out of the ATM, but I didn't really know exactly what I had and what.

Was to come.

You're punting? Did you do most of it at the pub you were working at mostly?

Yeah?

Yeah, So who was putting through the transactions?

Well, it was so it was we had a few mates there who were putting.

Through the transactions. But yeah, like me as well, Like I was punching in.

So you would you would take money out of your own pocket?

Yeah, yeah, have a bot.

I had the money there, so I just sort of I just put a few bets on and then just reconciled the ind of it night.

Now, my guess is not allowed to do that? Well, yeah, like it's frowned upon, absolutely frown upon being illegal.

Yeah, well I don't think it's illegal I just think it's you know, it's not not best practice when but everyone a lot of people do it.

How big were some of those bets in the first week.

Sort of it was like one one, two hundred dollars for a win something like that.

Yeah, the biggest wins.

The biggest win was probably Yeah, like actually at the time, I thought I was the worst gathering the world. But you know, it turns out like it's a pretty pretty big title to get. There's a few a few nasty partners out there competition.

Yeah, sure, So.

Yeah I wasn't I wasn't that bad, but I wasn't great. So yeah, so I was sort of I was losing. I was losing a lot. So what I was doing was I was transferring money back onto the credit card because because once the money's there, you can transfer it anywhere else, you know what I mean, So all your linked accounts and all that sort of thing, you could just use it as normal because it was it was

So, so you were some of the punting you were doing online?

Then, yes, some of it online as well.

Dan's not alone in his little ATM scan. He's got a crew, a bit of a posse. I mean, it's no Ocean's eleven George Clooney posse, but he has a crew.

Well. I had had the chef mate Mark, another guy Evana, and stuck regulars from the apartment stuff.

Okay, Sovana is just a just a bloke, but.

Yeah, yeah, just a bluck on you. He used to used to come in and have a few bets at the place where I used to work at west Side.

Dan has tried to keep most of his friends who don't want to be named free from his story. You'll hear some references later in the podcast to old mate. He's one of those guys who Dan says is a professional and he wants to put the glitch behind him. However, Dan did give me one of the names of his posse meet Evano.

Yeah, so I'm I currently live in Wangaratta. I'll work at Dan Murphy's casually. Previously you have worked in the public service, but I decided to move back to the country town. And yeah, just trying to find my feet. Pretty easy gun bloke love.

Sort of a bit like Dan. Just a nice, normal LOSSI bloke who was only eighteen when the glitch happened. They weren't mates before they met at the tavern, the West Side Tavern, or Juddies as the locals call it. It's called Juddies after as you would expect the Aussie bloke Paul Judd, who owns it.

Yes, I met Dan at Juddies, a place called Juddy's Tavern in Wangarada. It's a small part and it used to be my local back in the day and yeah still still is.

What do you remember about that first time that you met Dan?

Ah just an easy gun bloke. We had a lot in common, easy to talk to, both loved sport. We both loved the punt. Yeah, and yeah, just an easy gun bloke who enjoyed a good time.

So he was pulling beers essentially, and you're in the pub having beers.

Yeah, he was one of the only bartenders there at Juddies is fairly SMA, all quite joint and yeah, we struck up a friendship pretty quickly.

What do you remember about those early days of having a punt at Juddies or the West Side. Just a good time.

Just yeah, enjoyed myself. Pretty laid back, but yeah we are. Yeah, we used to do the form guide together and pick out a few winners, pick pick out a quaddy and yeah we didn't have much lark. We're both pretty ordinary at the punt, so yeah, but yeah we had a lot of fun.

If you're on the punt at a pub with a guy that you hardly know, he what sort of before the glitch happened, what sort of bets are you're putting on.

The odd quaity fifty to one hundred bucks put fifty to one hundred bucks in each.

So a quaddy is where you pick four horses across four full races and if they all come in, you get a bigger pool. Of money, right, that's correct. Yeah, did you ever win one of those?

We did, Yeah, and I do remember one early on and we collected about two and a half grand each, So from one hundred dollars investment, it's a pretty good return. But Taya, there was a lot of losers in between.

Mate, Talk to me what Dan's like as a bloke.

Yeah, just very very generous type of person, down to earth, easy going, just enjoys a good time. Top bloker, gets pleasure from other people having a good time. If he had twenty bucks left in his bank account, your boy, you would be here. There's no question he's. Dan's definitely the type of bloke who would take his shirt off, off his back and yeah, give you his last dollar. He's that to bloke. He's very generous.

And all throughout the glitch. Did that change, Did that style of person change? No, not at all.

It just got bigger and he got more generous. Yeah.

Talk to me about the night that he found out that he had this magic ATM card. Do you remember that night? Did you see him that night?

I didn't see him that night.

I saw him.

I saw him the day before, but yeah, he was he was out with a mate who I knew fairly well, called Mark, and they were having beers at another venue, the Bull's Head, which is not far away from Juddy. So he finished that work, cashed up, and then headed off to the Bull's Head.

When did you find out that Dan had a little bit more cash than normal?

When he invited me to hang out? I look, it was it was a few days later, went out to dinner. He was buying the drinks, every every expense was on him, shouting other people drinks, shouting like I remember on that first night he s had the whole bar. I just remember thinking, what's going on? Like, you earned seven hundred bucks a week? Where's his money coming from? And at the time he said, I've had a big win, mate,

Yeah there's a bit of cash here. Yeah, we were doing some boisterous stuff. Yeah, like we did.

We'd leave money on the ground, you know, not you know, not much like you know, five dollars, ten dollars here and there and just sort of watch people find it. You know, it's a bit but juvenile when you sort of think about it now. But it's like at the time, it was just a bit of fun. It wasn't really you know, it wasn't really serious with just someone can't you come up to us at the PubL someone.

Keeps leaving like ten dollars. It's so weird. You'd be like, oh.

Gee, that's that's weird, mate, that doesn't normally happen, you know. So yeah, you just spin people out a bit and just have a bit, have a bit of fun with people. There wasn't really it was me getting into a hole with punting.

That's what it was at this stage.

So there was drinks and stuff like that, like I'd shout a few beers, but I definitely wasn't telling the.

People that I had heaps of cash.

Okay, that's for sure.

That went on sort of for about maybe three or four weeks, and so we start, Yeah, so I started spending a bit more as I sort of felt that this is like a this is a thing now, like this is a problem, Like you know, I've spent forty grand or something now, so it's going to be it's going to be a massive issue if I, if I sort of stop doing this, I'm going to have to pay back all the money and it's going to take me ages because I seven hundred bucks a week.

Miss the missus is not going to be happy. She's going to be angry.

So Belle's got no idea right now.

No, No, she doesn't know nothing.

She doesn't live with you, so no, she's not seeing your lifestyle.

No, that's it.

That's it, and you're just work late last night.

Yeah, I don't know.

I think I entered that sort of period of like hopelessness. Like I was like, oh, I'm going to like I'm going to keep digging myself a whole year if I keep doing it. But I'm like I don't want to stop because it's like pretty crazy and lots of fun as well. But yeah, so I was sort of like becoming conflicted as to what I should do. One Wednesday night at work, I was punting like a madman, like

Dan newses the word reinvesting like he's a banker reinvesting in futures. But he's not. He's a barman who's reinvesting at the Dapto Dogs on a Wednesday night, trying to make back the cash he's lost, digging a bigger and bigger hole as every bunny rolls past.

I know I'm in a hole, and so pushing the envelope like I'm trying to trying to get this money back. And Mark's there and he's putting on the bets. Anyway, there's no one else.

In the pub.

Nine am, nine pm on Wednesday night. And so anyway, the next morning comes and straight into the office, you know, I've been got caught into work early, straight in the office, still a bit bleary eyed, and the owner of the pub, Paul, is there with a conference call from Melbourne and it's Tap Corp on the phone, and you know, this guy comes over and he goes, blah blah blah from Greg from Compliance in Tap Corp in Melbourne, would you like to do this here or would you like to do

Basically, you know, we've got all the evidence in.

The world to say that you were punting like heavily behind the bar where you work last night, and yeah, okay, there's no issue because you know, you haven't stolen money. So there's a thought that I'm stealing the money, you know, like I'm basically putting on bets so I don't have the money to cover, all right, that's what they're you know, because we've turned over more money on a Wednesday night than the whole pub would turn over in a month. You know, there's quite a lot of money, so let's

And then they had the audacity to ask me.

They just fired me, and then they had the audacity to ask me if I had a gambling problem. And I said, have you got all your money? And they said yes, And I said, well you tell me, you tell me got off the call, and then Paul, the owner of the pub, sort of said, look, mate, you know I need someone to operate the tab. If you can't operate the tab, then you know I can't employ, you know, like that's it. So I was like, okay, well, well yeah, you're all done. You fired, you know, that's it.

But oh, that's right. Dan Scott a fiance. They've been together for four years. They're saving for a house. She's living down the road with her family, and Dan has been firehead. He's in a lot of dead and things are starting to spiral.

But anyway, small town things are travels fast. So she yeah, she sends me a text the same pretty much the same day, just out of the blue, and it says, I'm not sure what you're into, but I want no part of it and.

That's it for us. And I was like, Okay, I understand why.

She would have done it, because there would have been people in town going, he's off the rails and all the rest of it. Yeah, but it hurt me at the time. I didn't get a conversation with her. I didn't get to sort of say because I probably would have admitted to her what was going on, but it was it was just the severing of text.

It was like, oh, you know, fuck you know.

I was like, well, I sort of reacted to it a bit, and that's when I sort of developed a bit of a like a like I had a the only thing going right in my life was a was a.

Magic credit card.

And now I had a reason to sort of like, you know, be a bit shitty, you know at the world. I don't know.

You and Belle had been together for four years, yeah, four years, saving for a house together, yeah, you know, dreams of marriage, being together forever, et cetera. Yeah, yeah, that's that obviously hurts. And then being split up with my text over probably someone else saying something I'm guessing that's yeah eventuated. Have have you ever reconnected with Belle?

Oh? Yeah, absolutely, there's no there's no hard feelings there. I mean she's you know, she's she's married. I think she has kids. I think you know, but they're definitely like we've spoken since and yeah, there's no there's no real will there, but it's just at the time, you know, like you just react in little situations you like I will, like you could have at least given me, like a chance to explain it to you, because I was probably looking for an outlet to do that as well.

Right about now before the end of this episode, you can hear the desperation in Dan situation. He's in massive debt, he's been fired. Nobody from the bank is calling to say, hey, buddy, you've got forty k dead on your credit card and you only earn seven hundred bucks a week. I hang on used to earn seven hundred bucks a week. His fiance is split up with him via text, although she doesn't know what he's been out to This is not just a you girlfriend boyfriend. This is you know, yeah, we.

Had plans, absolutely, but I mean, you know, how like I think of it now and I'm like, well, how serious must I have been about those plans, because like I was, you know, like I don't know, like I just got into this thing, and I was in this this vortex of this thing, and I was like, you know, I guess I guess when anyone has like a problem with punting or something like that, you know, they probably need someone to sort of step in and go, hey, you know, it's probably not the best thing for you.

By this stage, Dan's a little lost, but he still has the magic card and he still knows about the glitch and has mates like Evano who can help him spend it.

He certainly loved her, loved her a lot. Yeah, she was a lot different, very very religious. She's a teacher, very quiet. Yeah, a bit different to Dan, but I guess they certainly got along very well.

We think, well, he's probably going to get married and have kids and do all that stuff.

At that stage. Yeah I did.

Yeah, yeah he was.

He was very serious with his partner.

And yeah, does that family still live in Wangaratta. They do.

Yeah, they live in a small town called Glamoro and they're a big, big Italian family. So my family's got a fit a little bit to do with them.

Yeah, oh wow, okay, so you would still see them around definitely. Yep. Does Belle still live in wangarrett She does, Yeah, she does, but she's married off now with kids and.

Yeah, different family. I think her and Diana they've spoken not too long ago, but yeah, she's a yeah, moved on, had kids.

And there was one person who knew what Dan was doing with the ATM glitch, his chef mate and drinking partner, Mark.

The only person I told up until then was was Mark.

But he was just like, you know, I don't know what you're doing, man, but I don't want to talk about it, Like you know, you just do what you're doing, and you know, we'll go out for beers and stuff and it'll be cool.

You know, it's very dry, very funny. Guys like, look, I don't know what you're into, but I'm not. I'm not into it. YEA fair enough?

Then I had Yeah, I had no job, I had no fiance, so there was no I had no reason to be there anymore. Mark had a few days off, so I said to Mark, do you want to go there? You know, you want to go to Capital City. He's like, yeah, on,

Open the door. They're like, we're full, and I was like, oh yeah, okay.

So we walked around to Crown which is very close, and the Crown Promenade was full apparently, and they said, why don't you try Crown Towers. There's a few. I was like, okay, Crown Towers good. So crowns they're probably the towers is the best, you know, the better one other two. So I was like, okay, well I wanted to Like I wasn't trying to go I wasn't trying to go big. I was just you know, I want to go to the Crown Plaza, you know, hundred bucks

And I remember we checked in and he's.

Lived in Graphing one grata and he's like he's got the the electronic blinds and he's just putting them across and then he was like, what's about the window? And he gets imagine this was your life, you know, it's like always stuck with that thing.

It was like, yeah, we entered another world on that night.

Like that was like that was the time, So that's we will lead episode two Gains cashed up with the bank's money and he's back in Melbourne and about to be a rock star.

It was probably a month in also, and I think that's been about fifty Can I can.

Do it again? I want to do it again in case yeah, good again, like more than me?

Like he hated the banks, so he started on this steam.

Well, you've been given a gift and you if you fucked this up, that's going to be like the world's worst thing ever because you've been like you're the chosen both.

You could fix your problems with the stroke of a.

Key on an ATM. It was like it was like crack cocaine of scamps, you know, reality.

Who wants to live there?