Japanese man gambled away a huge Covid-19 relief funds mistakenly sent to him

[AmoreJaz]

I see a couple of things to comment here.

To begin with, there are those who believe that if you get money in your account by mistake, you have the right to spend it. False. You have to pay it back.

The man in the story has all the appearance of being a problem gambler, and the saddest thing is that he spent what was originally intended for low-income households, but you can see at the end of the news that the authorities have sent them the money back without waiting for the man in the story to return it.

At least the story has had a happy ending, now the man has to pay back the money.

I agree, at least the townspeople still got the help they need. also, the man is being sued by the town(which I think is a good thing) despite him saying that he will pay back the money he gambled that was mistakenly sent to him.

anyway, it was kind of weird that the authorities took two weeks before they contacted him.

so i thought japanese people are all honest. but there will always be outliers. the man's action of spending it rather than look for the rightful owner, maybe owed to his gambling lifestyle. because he saw it as good opportunity to use, he never resorted to sending it back. but at least he is accepting the consequences of his actions. with this yet another gambling story, it shows that when you are deep in gambling, your decisions become out of logic, hence, why many people are not looking at gambling in a positive way.

[milewilda]

I see a couple of things to comment here.

To begin with, there are those who believe that if you get money in your account by mistake, you have the right to spend it. False. You have to pay it back.

The man in the story has all the appearance of being a problem gambler, and the saddest thing is that he spent what was originally intended for low-income households, but you can see at the end of the news that the authorities have sent them the money back without waiting for the man in the story to return it.

At least the story has had a happy ending, now the man has to pay back the money.

I agree, at least the townspeople still got the help they need. also, the man is being sued by the town(which I think is a good thing) despite him saying that he will pay back the money he gambled that was mistakenly sent to him.

anyway, it was kind of weird that the authorities took two weeks before they contacted him.

so i thought japanese people are all honest. but there will always be outliers. the man's action of spending it rather than look for the rightful owner, maybe owed to his gambling lifestyle. because he saw it as good opportunity to use, he never resorted to sending it back. but at least he is accepting the consequences of his actions. with this yet another gambling story, it shows that when you are deep in gambling, your decisions become out of logic, hence, why many people are not looking at gambling in a positive way.

Majority are honest specially on Japan where people known with that kind of trait but we know that not all would really be that honest on which there would be people would changed up on point
whenever they do encounter huge funds or money that they havent able to get or hand on their entire lives which it would really be a mixed emotion of using it or would return it to the rightful owner
but on this case he had made use of those funds for gambling and now he said that it wasnt his fault for those funds to be transferred into this account.
so he do still need to face up some consequences for this one.

[Saisher]

just as the title states, a man in Japan mistakenly sent 46.3m yen to his bank account which was supposed to be shared among 436 people in their town. the article says that the man gambled away the money by withdrawing 600k yen daily for two weeks and gambles it in online casinos and when the authority finally contacted him the money has already been gambled and gone. initially the man refuse to pay back the money that was mistakenly sent to him but after some time he decided to pay it back bit by bit. the town is also suing him for this incident.


now, I have a question, do you think the man is entirely at fault or someone should also be responsible?

The town has all the right to sue the man because in the first place he should do the right thing by asking where the money comes from, he cannot defend that it is his money because it is wrongly sent, I pity the man because he is someone who needs to address his gambling habit, he is not someone you can trust your money, I hope he can settle this and also get help from curing his gambling addiction, if not it will harm him and people will not trust him, even his family.

[Yogee]

...I have a question, do you think the man is entirely at fault or someone should also be responsible?

He is entirely at fault for spending the money that wasn't his in the first place. The best course of action should have been to wait for someone to claim it or report it to authorities. The other person responsible it the one who sent the money to his account but that should be a different case. What was he or she thinking?

[Smartvirus]

~snipe~

Sometimes I ask myself, how do people get to gamble away such huge funds. Like, 600k weekly... it might not look so huge to some buy, you could see the significance it makes to the whole funds that was deposited in his account within the least possible time. Funds that were meant to help some 436 persons life, gambled away by a single individual. I don't blame him but rather feel sorry for him and he surely deserves to be sued. He's quiet sure he wasn't expecting any of such funds and still, instead of investigating or giving it time to try and confirm what was the case, he went straight to gambling it away.

Also, the individual or body to have sent the fund is another person or group to hold responsible. When incidents like this happens, you notify the bank almost immediately to froze the account and contact the owner for possible resolution. That would have helped toreserve fge funds and ensure some easy recovery.

[qwertyup23]

According to the link, the man was mistakenly sent the money, not that the man mistakenly sent the money to his bank account. That money is huge and the man should be blamed. He spent it so much on gambling which is another reason to blame him. All I think is that he may want to play smart, knowing authority will still come for the money, but just use it to fastly take a chance and use part of it to gamble continuously and losing it. That money is very huge for the man not to be blamed, he should be blamed.

Thank you very much for the clarification- then it all makes sense now.

First, I thought that the Japanese man should not entirely be blamed by this incident. But since he intentionally knew about the funds for the covid relief, then he should be put behind bars for using such funds for his personal gain. But despite all of this, there is that growing concern of his addiction. Imagine, spending that much amount of money in a relatively short amount of time- I guess their government has to address the issue of addiction after all.

[uneng]

Mistakes like this are more common than you expect, and that is actually a good lesson for people who don't bother checking from where the money that reach to their accounts come from. Sometimes money arrives in our accounts and we don't know why we have received that amount and where it came from, so it's always better to ask the bank or the responsible authority what is the reason behind it, and promptly give it back, otherwise we might find ourselves in a similar situation of this man or even worse, in cases where the money comes from dirty sources controlled by criminals.

[ethereumhunter]

...I have a question, do you think the man is entirely at fault or someone should also be responsible?

He is entirely at fault for spending the money that wasn't his in the first place. The best course of action should have been to wait for someone to claim it or report it to authorities. The other person responsible it the one who sent the money to his account but that should be a different case. What was he or she thinking?

Maybe the guy thought he was getting free money from someone generous. If he asked the bank where he opened the account, such a thing wouldn't have to happen and he wouldn't have to return all the money. But it is possible when we see a lot of money in our account can tempt us to use it for various things. This requires awareness not to use the money before we know where the money came from.

[lionheart78]

so i thought japanese people are all honest.

There is always good and bad fruit everywhere.  Not because you are Japanese or a Chinese you will be this kind of person.  That is a very wrong assumption.

After reading all the replies, I think the receiver is in cahoots with the sender.  It makes sense now why that huge sum of money is transferred to a single account.  It is really impossible for a government office to have such kind of error unless it is planned.  And yeah Land-based Casino is the best place to hide where the money is spent.  The receiver can just say he lost the money in gambling while the truth is he shared the money with the sender.
So with this theory in mind, the sender should also be held responsible.

[Pamadar]

so i thought japanese people are all honest.

There is always good and bad fruit everywhere.  Not because you are Japanese or a Chinese you will be this kind of person.  That is a very wrong assumption.

After reading all the replies, I think the receiver is in cahoots with the sender.  It makes sense now why that huge sum of money is transferred to a single account.  It is really impossible for a government office to have such kind of error unless it is planned.  And yeah Land-based Casino is the best place to hide where the money is spent.  The receiver can just say he lost the money in gambling while the truth is he shared the money with the sender.
So with this theory in mind, the sender should also be held responsible.

If proven guilty, there's no way that the sender can escape this case. He will also have that responsibilities.

I get your point, even Japanese culture has that kind of mentalities, there are still people that will come out not the way
mostly thinks.

People are people, we all have differences and we can't control even it's not the usual act. There's still someone that
will break the kind of culture they have.

[bitzizzix]

In my opinion, this incident will be a question that really needs to be investigated thoroughly by the authorities, because there is an oddity if they find out that he sent the wrong money, that person will immediately contact or look for the person's whereabouts.
or there will be a question with the person who is entitled because he has not received the money if it was sent that day, and the question is why the person who sent it or the official who made the delivery error contacted him after two weeks. And of course the person who receives it is very happy even though it is wrong because it is not his right and spends it gambling because maybe that person is a gambling addict.
and this should be done in-depth investigation to find the truth because I think both are wrong.

[Smartprofit]

I see a couple of things to comment here.

To begin with, there are those who believe that if you get money in your account by mistake, you have the right to spend it. False. You have to pay it back.

The man in the story has all the appearance of being a problem gambler, and the saddest thing is that he spent what was originally intended for low-income households, but you can see at the end of the news that the authorities have sent them the money back without waiting for the man in the story to return it.

At least the story has had a happy ending, now the man has to pay back the money.

I agree, at least the townspeople still got the help they need. also, the man is being sued by the town(which I think is a good thing) despite him saying that he will pay back the money he gambled that was mistakenly sent to him.

anyway, it was kind of weird that the authorities took two weeks before they contacted him.

so i thought japanese people are all honest. but there will always be outliers. the man's action of spending it rather than look for the rightful owner, maybe owed to his gambling lifestyle. because he saw it as good opportunity to use, he never resorted to sending it back. but at least he is accepting the consequences of his actions. with this yet another gambling story, it shows that when you are deep in gambling, your decisions become out of logic, hence, why many people are not looking at gambling in a positive way.

The Japanese really have a special national mentality.  

From childhood, the Japanese are taught to follow the rules.  This is a feature of the thousands of years of isolated life of the Japanese on the islands.  

If you live in isolation from strangers, then all the people around you are your distant and close relatives.  And in relation to relatives there is always a moral duty.  

Nevertheless, addiction to gambling greatly transforms the moral standards of the player.  

This is the similarity between gambling addiction and drug addiction and alcoholism.

[ralle14]

now, I have a question, do you think the man is entirely at fault or someone should also be responsible?

I don't know how frequently mistakes happen when sending money but when you receive something that isn't right you should start to question where it came from instead of just going along with it and instantly claiming ownership.

With that said, the man is to blame but that doesn't mean the sender gets away with it since it all started from his side as you shouldn't make those kinds of mistakes when it's your job to properly send out the money and make sure everyone gets their share. Good to hear that the guy ended up returning the money back even though it would take a while.

[goldkingcoiner]

Are they definitely sure that he gambled it away? Maybe he was just secretly pocketing the money while saying he was gambling it?

Agree.

If that's the case, telling the authorities that "I gambled it away" at an overseas online casino is a clever way of expressing, "I hid the money in my pocket so that the authorities will have a hard time dealing with the casino in giving my account details since they don't give a shit."

Since the article states that it is an overseas casino, it is clear that it is not legally permitted to operate in Japan, making cooperation with them a waste of time.

Especially with crypto. Personally, I would use Monero to hide my unjustly earned money, if I were him. Although he could have just as well bought Bitcoin, put it on some random wallets and claimed he gambled it away. How is his guilt going to be held up in court unless he proves that he is the owner of said wallets? Or bought altcoins and swap between different tokens whenever he wanted?

And as you said, the legal framework is not going to hold up in any country with contradictory laws.

This story is unrealistic and fishy to me.

 

[serjent05]

This story is unrealistic and fishy to me.

I also think too.  Considering the amount deposited and the amount withdrawn for 2 weeks in the given daily amount withdrawals.  There is no way he is able to withdraw all the funds in that account in just two weeks.  There are irregularities in the report.  And why isn't the sender questioned? 

Especially with crypto. Personally, I would use Monero to hide my unjustly earned money, if I were him. Although he could have just as well bought Bitcoin, put it on some random wallets and claimed he gambled it away. How is his guilt going to be held up in court unless he proves that he is the owner of said wallets? Or bought altcoins and swap between different tokens whenever he wanted?

It was in Japanese currency so if he decided to convert it to crypto then there will be traces of transactions.  Even after buying he converted it to privacy coins and send it to another wallet, the initial transaction is still there.  P2p would be the best approach but with the amount of money involved, it will be very dangerous of the risk of being double crossed.

[fiulpro]

I definitely have read a couple of news regarding 'Gambling' which is done using the new 'Covid relief Funds' therefore at the end of the day the government would not really like the fact that people are not using the funds for what they were intended for which also means that they would try and inhibit it in the future as well. Other than that the man in the story gambling away the funds that he received accidentally is some other level as well, therefore I do think that we need to back up the story see if it's real and then hold the man accountable because at the end of the day it's not a genuine acceptable behavior he must also need some advice on controlling his Gambling and some professional help.

[Doell]

This story must be investigated thoroughly considering that money is not small, sender and recipient seem to have been planned. Gambling using other people's money is a big case, the man must somehow recoup the money he spent on gambling. The mistake on gambler's side was obvious, but it's well structured. This is dangerous because the covid aid funds can be misused like that, maybe the law that man Japanese receive will be very severe and fatal, considering that Japan has a firm attitude.

[rahmad2nd]

just as the title states, a man in Japan mistakenly sent 46.3m yen to his bank account which was supposed to be shared among 436 people in their town. the article says that the man gambled away the money by withdrawing 600k yen daily for two weeks and gambles it in online casinos and when the authority finally contacted him the money has already been gambled and gone. initially the man refuse to pay back the money that was mistakenly sent to him but after some time he decided to pay it back bit by bit. the town is also suing him for this incident.

you can read the full story here
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-61490436

now, I have a question, do you think the man is entirely at fault or someone should also be responsible?

yes he is legally guilty, I don't know the exact jurisdiction of the law in Japan, but the mistake is using money that doesn't belong to him regardless of the transfer error by the bank.  fortunately he wants to return the money even though periodically.  Well if he doesn't return the money then the law will ensnare him and put him in jail

[acroman08]

This story is unrealistic and fishy to me.

I also think too.  Considering the amount deposited and the amount withdrawn for 2 weeks in the given daily amount withdrawals.  There is no way he is able to withdraw all the funds in that account in just two weeks.  There are irregularities in the report.  And why isn't the sender questioned?  

which part is unrealistic? the whole thing or just parts of it?

here's another article regarding the news. it has more details in it and it also mentions that they are investigating how the erroneous transfer went unnoticed. it also says that the man has made 34 withdrawals in just over ten days. I am looking for updates regarding this news but I can't find one. I also want to know as to whether there was a foul play or just a mistake from the sender.

[STT]

 Story rings true, it happened in Australia also, search for petrol or gas station owners receive millions. They fled the country in a yacht I believe, not legal as they had a business they had duty to return but the Japanese man Im not sure.

This gambling fortune doesnt make sense to me but its not a one off.   IF you win millions through luck or fate somehow then I dont see why it's then gamble fodder.  I would buy nice car, boat, house, everything.   Why do I gamble after winning I know people do that but I suggest joining a racing club or some other pursuit of adrenaline might actually be more profitable.     At this point buy a race horse!  become the person on the race course if you are that rich why not go for it.  Buy the casino if you are really rich