Thousands of cases: New cash cases at ATMs

“You don’t play with money.” Many people, especially the younger generation, seem to have yet to internalize this saying. At least that’s what a recent incident involving the social network TikTok suggested. A new trend recently went viral here, with many users in the USA taking part. Videos talked about a technical error at the US bank JPMorgan Chase. This would mean that you could have as much cash as you wanted. But that’s only part of the truth.

The idea worked, but only briefly

According to information available to the Wall Street Journal, thousands of citizens have recently withdrawn sums of money that exceeded their account balances. To do this, they had to write themselves or a friend a check and cash it at an ATM. Usually, in such cases, only a portion of the amount can be withdrawn immediately. However, a bug at JPMorgan Chase appears to have meant that bank customers were able to withdraw the full amount of money for a few days without verifying the check.

What those affected did not consider: Such transactions are also recognized and recorded by the bank’s systems. While the procedure itself is a form of check fraud and also a crime. The credit institution is therefore planning to hand over evidence such as surveillance footage and personal information to the authorities. This could result in legal consequences in the form of criminal charges. Since numerous TikTokers have continued to overdraw their accounts, they must now pay back the amounts they have withdrawn. If they are unable to do so, according to CNET, in extreme cases they could even face imprisonment.

Bank takes first steps

The technical error responsible for the TikTok trend has now been fixed. In addition, JPMorgan Chase froze some of the affected bank accounts. On TikTok, the distribution of corresponding videos appears to have been restricted, while some clips have been marked with the warning “Your participation in this activity could result in injury to you or others.”