Latest / History Dark / An ATM Error Made Him Millions Out Of Thin Air _ The Glitch
Transcript
- 0:02Speaker 1: And I'm going to start recording on my, on this one,
- 0:05Speaker 1: which is just.
- 0:06Speaker 2: That's Dan Saunders. And that's me. I'm the host.
- 0:11Speaker 3: Now, Dan had a magic ATM card that he's used
- 0:14Speaker 3: to steal $ 1. 6 million of the bank's money and use
- 0:19Speaker 3: it for sex, drugs and rock and roll in the
- 0:22Speaker 3: space of four months before it all came crashing down.
- 0:26Speaker 2: But we'll get to that later in the series.
- 0:29Speaker 3: But now let's find out what sort of guy Dan is.
- 0:40Speaker 4: Prior to this, I'd done probably two things wrong that
- 0:45Speaker 4: I was never, I was never caught for.
- 0:48Speaker 1: First one, I think I was five.
- 0:52Speaker 4: And I remember mum saying, oh, there's a beautiful bedspreads up.
- 0:55Speaker 4: And she said, oh, I can't afford it this week,
- 0:56Speaker 4: but we'll get it soon. I looked at the bedspreads
- 0:59Speaker 4: and I was like, oh, they're there. Why don't you
- 1:01Speaker 4: just take them now?
- 1:02Speaker 1: No problem.
- 1:02Speaker 4: So I waited for mum to walk off and then
- 1:04Speaker 4: I just grabbed them. And, you know, halfway down the street,
- 1:07Speaker 4: I'm like, oh, I've got those bedspreads, mum.
- 1:10Speaker 1: And she's like... what are you doing, you know, take
- 1:12Speaker 1: it back.
- 1:12Speaker 4: You know, my mum's never done anything wrong in her life.
- 1:15Speaker 4: You know, she taught me that, you know, you can't just,
- 1:17Speaker 4: you know, take things out of the store. But prior
- 1:19Speaker 4: to that, I didn't really know that because I never
- 1:21Speaker 4: thought that would make mum happy.
- 1:22Speaker 1: So that's what I did.
- 1:24Speaker 3: As you can hear, Dan is no master criminal. He's
- 1:27Speaker 3: just an ordinary, average Aussie bloke.
- 1:30Speaker 4: Yeah, when I was sort of, I think I was 16,
- 1:34Speaker 4: I started, you know, hospitality work. I think my first
- 1:37Speaker 4: job was at Nando's, something like that. in the first
- 1:40Speaker 4: Nando's in Australia, grilling chickens on the street to drum
- 1:44Speaker 4: up business.
- 1:45Speaker 1: And yeah, I mean, like I was never, you know,
- 1:49Speaker 1: hungry for money.
- 1:50Speaker 4: Or ambitious or not in like, not because I couldn't
- 1:55Speaker 4: do it or I didn't feel, you know, I felt
- 1:57Speaker 4: overwhelmed or anything like that.
- 1:59Speaker 1: Like I just prefer that kind of work.
- 2:01Speaker 4: Like it's just, you know, I feel like you're, you're
- 2:04Speaker 4: sort of at the forefront of people's experiences. You know,
- 2:07Speaker 4: you just like, if you work in a bar or
- 2:09Speaker 4: a nightclub or, you know, you're actually like in charge
- 2:13Speaker 4: of the, you know, other people having a great time.
- 2:15Speaker 4: So that sort of appealed to me. So yeah, I
- 2:17Speaker 4: always just worked in hospitality. I worked at the casino
- 2:20Speaker 4: in Melbourne, worked at a few places.
- 2:27Speaker 5: What did you want to be when you grew up?
- 2:29Speaker 4: It changed over the years, I think. So I think
- 2:31Speaker 4: it probably started with a footy player just because, you know,
- 2:34Speaker 4: my dad used to love footy and we used to
- 2:36Speaker 4: go and all that kind of thing.
- 2:37Speaker 5: What were you like at school?
- 2:39Speaker 1: Easily distracted, probably.
- 2:41Speaker 4: When you work out, school is basically just like a
- 2:44Speaker 4: conditioning or an interview for work. You've got to be
- 2:48Speaker 4: there at a certain time.
- 2:49Speaker 1: You get a desk, you know. someone gives you a
- 2:51Speaker 1: pen license halfway through and you think you're important.
- 2:53Speaker 5: You know what I mean?
- 2:55Speaker 1: And then you get to work and you're like, oh,
- 2:56Speaker 1: it's just the same shit. Like, so it's pretty, yeah.
- 3:00Speaker 4: I mean, once you work that out, if you're aware
- 3:03Speaker 4: enough to work that out as a young kid, like
- 3:05Speaker 4: how can you really get behind it?
- 3:06Speaker 1: I mean, but that's just my opinion.
- 3:08Speaker 5: Are you a deep thinker?
- 3:10Speaker 2: Oh, I don't know about that.
- 3:11Speaker 1: Like I wouldn't.
- 3:13Speaker 4: You know, like it depends. Like if you put me
- 3:14Speaker 4: in a think bubble at Google, they'd probably, you know,
- 3:16Speaker 4: say who's this guy. But, you know, like I think,
- 3:19Speaker 4: I've got a certain amount of street smarts, I think.
- 3:23Speaker 4: I got a job at a casino when I was 18.
- 3:29Speaker 4: One of the first things I saw at the casino
- 3:32Speaker 4: was this lady was playing the pokies, old Italian woman.
- 3:35Speaker 4: She was, like, distressed. You could see she had a problem. Like,
- 3:39Speaker 4: she was, like, you know, she was a bit twitchy
- 3:40Speaker 4: and she was just, like, you could see. I was
- 3:43Speaker 4: only working in a restaurant, like, across the way.
- 3:45Speaker 1: And she.
- 3:49Speaker 1: Dropped dead on the pokey machine.
- 3:51Speaker 4: Like her skull hit the machine, like with this force
- 3:56Speaker 4: of like a brick and she fell to the floor
- 4:00Speaker 4: and she was dead, right? Everyone, of course, you know,
- 4:04Speaker 4: suitably freaked out around it. Then they called the security
- 4:09Speaker 4: and the paramedics and so everyone came and then they're
- 4:13Speaker 4: working on it.
- 4:14Speaker 1: Then they put up a screen, right?
- 4:17Speaker 4: You know when you go to the races and they
- 4:20Speaker 4: put up a screen when a horse does its leg
- 4:22Speaker 4: and has to be put down, right? They did that
- 4:26Speaker 4: in the casino for the woman and put her on
- 4:29Speaker 4: the stretcher and then wheeled her out.
- 4:33Speaker 1: 45 minutes later, the screen had been cleaned. Someone else
- 4:37Speaker 1: was playing the poker machine. You know what I mean?
- 4:39Speaker 4: I was like, what is going on here?
- 4:45Speaker 5: So this is Crown Casino?
- 4:47Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, Crown Casino. I started in food and beverage.
- 4:52Speaker 4: I did a traineeship, actually. So I did, yeah, I
- 4:55Speaker 4: did work in all the different bars, all the different restaurants,
- 4:59Speaker 4: gained experience, and then I did it through, yeah, there
- 5:01Speaker 4: was a tafer touched. You know, it looks very, you know, official,
- 5:06Speaker 4: and it's probably toned down a bit now, but it's
- 5:09Speaker 4: that bosses who just.
- 5:12Speaker 1: go off after work.
- 5:13Speaker 4: And go straight back onto the gaming floor and start
- 5:16Speaker 4: playing blackjack.
- 5:18Speaker 1: The first thing I said to you is you're not
- 5:20Speaker 1: allowed to gamble. Plenty of people gamble.
- 5:23Speaker 4: It was an interesting introduction to a proper working life
- 5:28Speaker 4: as an adult.
- 5:29Speaker 5: You would have seen some big money go through there then? Yeah.
- 5:31Speaker 4: I saw David Hasselhoff once with a big Macca's bag
- 5:34Speaker 4: full of cash.
- 5:36Speaker 1: Loved it. I thought, that's great. I want to do
- 5:38Speaker 1: that one day.
- 5:42Speaker 4: We got caught at Crown swimming in the hotel pool.
- 5:46Speaker 4: Apparently that's an owner. Like if you work there, you're
- 5:48Speaker 4: not allowed to do that. They wanted to get rid
- 5:50Speaker 4: of us, but someone saved us and we just got
- 5:53Speaker 4: a written warning. Because whilst we used to get pissed
- 5:57Speaker 4: and stuff, we were actually quite good at our jobs.
- 6:02Speaker 4: I had a boss at the casino. He said, I'm
- 6:05Speaker 4: running a nightclub now. Why don't you come across? It
- 6:08Speaker 4: was a place called Watermark Bar. You know those hodgepodge joints?
- 6:12Speaker 4: They're like a bar during the day, and then they're
- 6:15Speaker 4: like lunch and dinner, and then they.
- 6:17Speaker 1: Sort of turn into a nightclub. That kind of joint,
- 6:20Speaker 1: you know?
- 6:20Speaker 2: Great, great.
- 6:21Speaker 4: You know, like you got about, you know, 8 or
- 6:24Speaker 4: 9 p.m., just people start moving the furniture, and then
- 6:27Speaker 4: suddenly like a dance.
- 6:28Speaker 1: Floor, you know, just arrives. And everyone's like, oh, we
- 6:32Speaker 1: were just having dinner, but now like we're, yeah, that
- 6:35Speaker 1: kind of joint.
- 6:36Speaker 2: So what about Dan's love life? Does he have a girlfriend?
- 6:39Speaker 3: Well, it was at this time he met Belle at
- 6:43Speaker 3: the Watermark Hotel.
- 6:44Speaker 4: Yeah, we started going out and then eventually we started
- 6:49Speaker 4: living together and, yeah, about 2009, 2010, something like that. Yeah,
- 6:57Speaker 4: she was sort of getting homesick and so she decided
- 7:00Speaker 4: that she was going to move back home and, yeah,
- 7:04Speaker 4: I followed because, yeah, she was great and we had
- 7:07Speaker 4: a great connection.
- 7:08Speaker 1: It was very funny.
- 7:09Speaker 5: And where was home for her?
- 7:12Speaker 1: Glenrowan, which is.
- 7:14Speaker 4: Not far from Wangaratta. There's no jobs in Glenrowan. So, yeah,
- 7:19Speaker 4: I had to move to Wangaratta. So she lived at
- 7:23Speaker 4: home at her place and I lived separately in Wangaratta in.
- 7:27Speaker 1: A share house, yeah.
- 7:29Speaker 5: And so how serious was it with her?
- 7:31Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, it was pretty serious. I mean, we
- 7:33Speaker 4: talked about getting married and, you know, that sort of thing.
- 7:36Speaker 4: I think, you know, four years in. That's kind of
- 7:39Speaker 4: the point when you're like, well, what are we doing here?
- 7:41Speaker 5: So you're thinking marriage?
- 7:44Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely.
- 7:46Speaker 4: I mean, that was the only reason I went because
- 7:48Speaker 4: I thought my future's here.
- 7:51Speaker 1: Look, I was drinking the Kool-Aid like everyone else.
- 7:53Speaker 4: I thought like 28, 29, it's time to settle down,
- 7:57Speaker 4: get married, get into more debt, be awesome. Yeah, it
- 8:01Speaker 4: was a very, very different life when I grew up.
- 8:04Speaker 5: Joint bank accounts and stuff?
- 8:05Speaker 6: Yeah.
- 8:06Speaker 4: Oh, like we had like a savings, like a joint
- 8:09Speaker 4: sort of savings account with the view to sort of
- 8:13Speaker 4: put money in there to, you know, buy something later on.
- 8:17Speaker 5: Like a house or something?
- 8:18Speaker 2: Yes.
- 8:19Speaker 5: Yeah. And that was set up and you were using that?
- 8:21Speaker 4: Yeah. Like, you know, like you'd transfer a little bit
- 8:25Speaker 4: sort of each week into there and that'd be, we
- 8:28Speaker 4: never used to earn too much. Yeah, I was sort of,
- 8:32Speaker 4: you know, just doing what I was doing. So I
- 8:34Speaker 4: wasn't really. You know, I used to like a few
- 8:36Speaker 4: beers after work and, you know, that kind of thing. So,
- 8:39Speaker 4: you know, I wasn't going to work, coming home, drinking
- 8:43Speaker 4: water and eating two-minute noodles and then going to sleep.
- 8:45Speaker 4: Like I was going out and, you know, having a
- 8:48Speaker 4: few drinks after work. Like it was nothing crazy. But, yeah,
- 8:51Speaker 4: I mean, out of the, yeah, 700 or whatever I
- 8:54Speaker 4: was earning, it was like, you know, a couple hundred
- 8:57Speaker 4: went on beers and then the rest went on, you know,
- 9:00Speaker 4: just the upkeep, you know, and then maybe a hundred bucks,
- 9:02Speaker 4: you know, into the joint account.
- 9:04Speaker 5: Talk to me about your mates in Wangaratta at that stage.
- 9:07Speaker 1: I was working at a place called the Westside Tavern.
- 9:10Speaker 4: It almost looked like, you know, one of those display homes,
- 9:13Speaker 4: like you go to a village and there's a display
- 9:15Speaker 4: home with the red brick?
- 9:18Speaker 1: Kind of like that, yeah. Like clean and nice, but.
- 9:22Speaker 4: Very, you know, like they put it up in the
- 9:24Speaker 4: middle of nowhere. You know, like there was not much
- 9:27Speaker 4: was established really around there, but it was solid.
- 9:31Speaker 1: It had solid foundations. Yes. there was hardly any trouble
- 9:33Speaker 1: there like it wasn't that kind of place it was like.
- 9:35Speaker 4: You knew if you went there it was just very
- 9:38Speaker 4: it was very basic you know comfortable style it wasn't
- 9:42Speaker 4: you know no one was you know too loud there
- 9:44Speaker 4: or anything like that it wasn't it was a nice
- 9:47Speaker 4: respectable inn i'd call it and there was one other
- 9:51Speaker 4: feature of that particular pub or inn.
- 9:53Speaker 6: As you like to call it the tap yeah yeah
- 9:55Speaker 6: the tab yeah so this is where you can punt
- 9:59Speaker 6: on pretty much anything you like. Did you personally like
- 10:08Speaker 6: a punt? Would you have a punt normally?
- 10:09Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely.
- 10:11Speaker 4: I used to have a punt on a Saturday, sometimes
- 10:15Speaker 4: on a Wednesday. Yeah, like we used to have punting
- 10:19Speaker 4: mates too. all sit around and talk about it.
- 10:22Speaker 5: Were you a good punter?
- 10:23Speaker 4: Me?
- 10:23Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 10:25Speaker 1: Like I think it's well documented. I'm the greatest punter
- 10:27Speaker 1: in the world. Razor sharp. Nah, not really good at all.
- 10:31Speaker 1: But you know, I never approached it very seriously.
- 10:37Speaker 2: So let's talk about that night. You're at the pub.
- 10:40Speaker 5: Are you, you're working?
- 10:41Speaker 6: Yeah.
- 10:42Speaker 4: West side tavern, pulling beers. Um, and, uh, it was
- 10:46Speaker 4: like a, it's like a Tuesday night, not much activity
- 10:48Speaker 4: at all. Um, Yeah, a few people just sort of
- 10:51Speaker 4: finishing up their fish and chips in the corner and
- 10:55Speaker 4: finishing their last pints. And then, yeah, it was goodnight
- 11:00Speaker 4: nurse about 9.30, 10 o'clock.
- 11:03Speaker 1: Yeah, I just cashed up.
- 11:05Speaker 5: Cashed up means basically the transaction.
- 11:08Speaker 4: Yeah, reconciled the till, reconciled the TAB, put it all
- 11:11Speaker 4: in the safe, locked the doors.
- 11:13Speaker 5: You're a pretty trustworthy guy.
- 11:15Speaker 1: Yeah, well, yeah. I mean, there was nothing not to
- 11:17Speaker 1: trust me with.
- 11:18Speaker 2: Like Elizabeth.
- 11:19Speaker 5: What sort of cash turns over in a pub like
- 11:21Speaker 5: that on a Tuesday night?
- 11:22Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.
- 11:24Speaker 4: I think you'd notice if you took money because if
- 11:26Speaker 4: you take $ 50 out of $ 400, it's a fair bit, right?
- 11:30Speaker 6: So you're not turning out the hundreds of thousands of
- 11:32Speaker 6: dollars or anything, right?
- 11:33Speaker 1: No, it's not a lot of money. I went to
- 11:34Speaker 1: a place called The Pool's Head.
- 11:36Speaker 4: It's payday on Wednesday, so things were a bit lame
- 11:40Speaker 4: in the old account. My mate shouted the first few,
- 11:43Speaker 4: and I was like, oh, I'm going to go and
- 11:44Speaker 4: try and get some money out because... I wasn't sure
- 11:46Speaker 4: because I knew that I transferred a little bit of
- 11:48Speaker 4: money to the joint account.
- 11:49Speaker 1: So I wasn't sure how much was in there. I
- 11:51Speaker 1: was pretty sure it.
- 11:52Speaker 4: Was like $ 3. It wasn't a lot of money, obviously.
- 11:56Speaker 4: So it was like $ 20, you know, minimum amount of
- 11:59Speaker 4: an ATM. But I tried to get a balance nonetheless
- 12:01Speaker 4: on my savings account and it wouldn't give me one.
- 12:03Speaker 4: It just said balance unavailable at this time. And by
- 12:06Speaker 4: this time, it's probably, yeah, probably 11 past 12.
- 12:10Speaker 5: 11 minutes past 12.
- 12:12Speaker 1: Yeah, on that Wednesday morning.
- 12:13Speaker 5: How do you remember that exact detail? Oh, it's pretty good.
- 12:16Speaker 4: Like the whole thing is like, it's definitely a period
- 12:19Speaker 4: that I was wired for sound during that time. And
- 12:23Speaker 4: I could tell you everything. I could tell you every
- 12:25Speaker 4: single thing. Pretty much exactly the time it happened.
- 12:28Speaker 5: So do you remember where the ACM is?
- 12:31Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. It's in Main Street, Wangaratta. It's got an alcove.
- 12:35Speaker 1: It's very comfortable. You can use it when it's raining.
- 12:37Speaker 4: The crux of it is that I had a savings
- 12:39Speaker 4: account and a credit card account, and they were.
- 12:43Speaker 1: Both linked to one another. So you could put your card.
- 12:47Speaker 4: In an ATM and you could transfer between those two accounts.
- 12:52Speaker 4: So when I couldn't get a balance on my account,
- 12:54Speaker 4: that's in fact what I did. So I put the
- 12:56Speaker 4: card back in and put my PIN number in and
- 13:00Speaker 4: then selected transfer. I was like, well, I'll just transfer
- 13:05Speaker 4: some money from my credit card to my savings account.
- 13:09Speaker 4: I didn't think there'd be much in the credit card,
- 13:11Speaker 4: but I thought there might be $ 200 in the credit card,
- 13:13Speaker 4: so I'll transfer it over.
- 13:15Speaker 1: I transferred $ 200.
- 13:16Speaker 4: From my credit card to my savings account. It just
- 13:19Speaker 4: said transaction cancelled and spat the card back out.
- 13:22Speaker 1: So I was like, okay, that's weird. So I put
- 13:26Speaker 1: the card back in, put the PIN back in. Yeah, well,
- 13:29Speaker 1: I'm a battler. I'm going to keep going. I'm going
- 13:31Speaker 1: to keep trying.
- 13:33Speaker 4: So I thought I'll get $ 200 out of the savings account,
- 13:36Speaker 4: see if the transfer worked. So anyway, the money comes out.
- 13:39Speaker 4: So I'm like, oh, okay, it must have worked. So
- 13:40Speaker 4: the ATM is not really telling me anything, but it's
- 13:43Speaker 4: still doing sort of what I want it to do.
- 13:45Speaker 4: And so I take the $ 200 and just go back
- 13:48Speaker 4: to the bar. We could really put them away. So
- 13:51Speaker 4: I've probably had probably three points in 40 minutes. So
- 13:56Speaker 4: then it's probably like five to one, something like that.
- 13:59Speaker 1: We're leaving. And it starts to rain.
- 14:07Speaker 5: You've still probably got $ 150 in your pocket, right?
- 14:10Speaker 2: Yeah, probably.
- 14:11Speaker 1: Probably $ 140 or something. Yeah.
- 14:11Speaker 6: Yeah.
- 14:12Speaker 4: I've got to walk home, which is maybe 1.2, 1.3Ks.
- 14:17Speaker 4: And so I'm like, I'll just stop in the Elko
- 14:23Speaker 4: over the ATM. And I was thinking about it. I
- 14:24Speaker 4: was just thinking that was weird. Like I certainly didn't
- 14:29Speaker 4: need more money at that point. Like nothing was open
- 14:33Speaker 4: in Wangrao. I couldn't have gone anywhere. I wasn't standing
- 14:36Speaker 4: at the front of a casino somewhere, you know, going, oh,
- 14:40Speaker 4: you know, how am I going to get a bit
- 14:41Speaker 4: of extra coin here? So out of pure curiosity and
- 14:45Speaker 4: probably a bit of beer, I've just gone, yeah, throw
- 14:50Speaker 4: the card back in and just see what happens here.
- 14:58Speaker 4: So I put it back in and I still couldn't
- 15:00Speaker 4: get a balance on my savings account. So I was like,
- 15:03Speaker 4: I'm going to transfer. from my credit card to my savings,
- 15:06Speaker 4: another $ 200.
- 15:08Speaker 1: So I did that. Same thing happened. Transaction cancelled and
- 15:11Speaker 1: the card came out.
- 15:13Speaker 4: And I was like, okay, well, if history has anything
- 15:18Speaker 4: to say about this, we should be able to get
- 15:21Speaker 4: the $ 200 out of the savings account.
- 15:23Speaker 1: So I did. So then I did $ 400.
- 15:27Speaker 4: Then I did $ 600.
- 15:32Speaker 5: All in the same night?
- 15:33Speaker 1: All in the same night.
- 15:34Speaker 4: And then I did another $ 800 or something. Enough to
- 15:39Speaker 4: drag it up to $ 2, 000. Because I had a credit
- 15:43Speaker 4: card and I had a savings card. So I could
- 15:46Speaker 4: get $ 1, 000 on each card.
- 15:49Speaker 1: I could get.
- 15:49Speaker 4: $ 1, 000 on the savings card and then I got $ 1, 000
- 15:52Speaker 4: on the credit card which was linked to the savings account.
- 15:55Speaker 4: So I just put the credit card in, pressed savings account,
- 15:58Speaker 4: get the $.
- 15:58Speaker 1: 1, 000 out of there.
- 16:00Speaker 4: So I had, yeah, I had about $ 1, 940 or something
- 16:04Speaker 4: like that in.
- 16:05Speaker 1: My hands and the rain stopped. I was like, oh, perfect, great.
- 16:14Speaker 4: So I started down the road and I put the
- 16:17Speaker 4: money in my wallet and yeah, just went home, went
- 16:21Speaker 4: to bed and I remember distinctly waking up in the
- 16:24Speaker 4: morning and I was like.
- 16:26Speaker 1: Oh, hell of a dream. That was a weird dream
- 16:28Speaker 1: to have.
- 16:30Speaker 4: Then I sort of Looked to the side and on
- 16:33Speaker 4: the right-hand side of me was this bedside table and
- 16:37Speaker 4: a wallet full of cash.
- 16:38Speaker 1: I was like, wow, that really did happen. Okay.
- 16:46Speaker 2: Next time on The Glitch.
- 16:47Speaker 4: I did transfer, you know, three lots of $ 900, 000 just
- 16:51Speaker 4: to see what had happened.
- 16:52Speaker 1: And then you go in and check.
- 16:53Speaker 4: The balance and it's like 2.7 million. They just fired
- 16:56Speaker 4: me and they had the audacity to ask me if
- 16:59Speaker 4: I had a gambling problem.
- 17:01Speaker 1: And I said, have you got all your money? And
- 17:03Speaker 1: they said, yes. And I said, well, you tell me.
- 17:06Speaker 4: Yeah, she sends me a text and it says, I'm
- 17:10Speaker 4: not sure what you're into, but I want
- 17:12Speaker 1: That part of it.