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Man accidentally paid 330 times his salary takes the money and disappears

A man clutching bank notes; the headquarters of Consorcio Industrial de Alimentos (CIAL) in Chile

The man promised to return the excess funds to his employers, but did no such thing

(iStock/CIAL)

Most working people think they deserve a raise, but few of us expect to see our paycheck increase by three figures overnight.

And yet, that’s precisely what happened to one man in Chile who checked his bank balance only to discover that his employer had accidentally paid him a hell of a lot more than he was owed.

The man had received 165,398,851 Chilean pesos (almost £135,000 or $175,000) instead of his usual salary of 500,000 pesos (around £408 or £528).

In other words, he’d been paid 330 times his usual amount.

The unnamed man worked for the Industrial Food Consortium (CIAL), a producer and distributor of cold cuts which is one of the biggest companies in Chile. And the slip-up with his payslip appears to have been the result of a human error, which occurred back in May 2022.

The man allegedly spotted the mistake in his monthly paycheck and even approached one of his seniors in the company to check he was seeing straight.

The assistant manager confirmed that he had, indeed, received an accidental but whopping salary increase and the news swiftly made it up to the big bosses, Chilean news site Diario Financiero reports.

The worker was told that he would need to return the excess funds, and he apparently agreed to go to his bank first thing the next morning and make the transfer.

However, that’s not how things panned out.

In fact, the following day the company realised that they hadn’t received the reimbursement and so they tried to contact the man to see what was going on.

Their calls were met with radio silence: the man was nowhere to be found.

Finally, after a number of hours, he responded, alleging that he’d been asleep which is why he failed to turn up to work or go to the bank.

A few days later, the company was contacted by lawyers who announced that the man had quit his job.

Since then, there has reportedly been neither sight nor sound from the fugitive employee.

And despite CIAL taking out legal action against him and getting police to investigate his whereabouts, the man – and the money – remain MIA.

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