JPMorgan Chase headquarters building in New York City. The banking giant is suing customers who exploited a viral technical flaw that allowed people to make huge withdrawals from Chase ATMs this summer. Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images Hide Caption
Toggle caption Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
This summer, JPMorgan Chase & Co. began filing lawsuits against customers who took advantage of the “unlimited funds glitch.” The glitch was a technical issue with the bank’s ATMs that allowed people to deposit fake checks and withdraw money from their accounts.
The trend spread across social media as TikTok users broadcast how they deposited fraudulent checks and walked away with large sums of cash.
The bank, the largest financial institution in the United States, has filed four lawsuits, two against individuals and two against businesses. These were in Los Angeles, Houston, and Miami.
“Fraud is a crime that affects everyone and undermines trust in the banking system,” Chase spokesman Drew Pusateri said in a statement. “We are pursuing these cases and actively working with law enforcement to ensure that anyone who defrauds Chase and our customers is held accountable.”
In the Southern District of Texas, the largest of the four lawsuits filed so far, JPMorgan wrote that a “masked man” deposited a fraudulent $335,000 check into the defendant’s bank account at an ATM. .
The man then allegedly withdrew most of the cash before the bank realized it was counterfeit. The bank said it owed a total of $290,939.47.
“Chase is proud of our efforts to protect our customers from fraudsters, especially in an environment where bank and wire fraud is increasingly common,” the bank said in its filing.
“While fraud techniques have evolved over time, the core intent to exploit and deceive remains the same,” the report said.
