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.
This article was originally published on 22 July 2024.
Why not read...
Flat Earther accidentally proves to himself that the world is round
AI cannot 'understand' language at all
Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter
How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel
Indy100 is the sister title of The Independent, now one of the largest, most trusted digital news brands in the world. Covering politics, celebrity and viral news, Indy100’s journalists write about it all – good and bad. It’s fun, original, it captures the mood and often finds the untold angle to the big global stories. It debunks fake news, pushes boundaries and is never boring. It complements The Independent perfectly, sharing its values and high quality journalistic standards. Follow Indy100 at the top of the article./em> 2025-06-21T10:19:51Z