On August 29, in an X post with over 7.8 million views, influencer Drench showed a screenshot where he had $80,000 waiting in his Chase bank account. For weeks, he had been posting wads of dollar bills with links to a Telegram group for followers to “get rich,” specifically mentioning an ominous, vague method to get money fast with Chase Bank.
Soon after, followers began posting “the method” Drench allegedly used to get the money out of ATMs at their local bank branches. Other users started showing exorbitant amounts of money in their bank accounts or flexing stacks of cash in front of the bank, implying that they had found a “glitch” to give them access to infinite wealth.
The “infinite money glitch” went viral on TikTok shortly after. One TikTok video of a Chase bank in NYC showed a line around the block of people waiting to use the company’s ATM.
These users would write checks to themselves, deposit them in an ATM, and then pull out smaller amounts of money while the check cleared. But writing fake checks is just check fraud — and anyone committing fraud is swiftly dealt a negative bank balance and a lock on their account.
One user posted a negative bank balance of $37,000, creating a GoFundMe to try and get out of their newly acquired debt.
The bug that allowed some people to take out cash was quickly fixed. A Chase spokesperson told the New York Post on Sunday, “We are aware of this incident, and it has been addressed. Regardless of what you see online, depositing a fraudulent check and withdrawing the funds from your account is fraud, plain and simple.”
News of the glitch traveled all across social media, with dozens of creators making videos about anyone foolish enough to fall for this get-rich-quick scheme. Sketches of those now saddled with generational debt and explanations of why it’s illegal pulled in millions of views.
While goats are minding their own business, other creators are creating their own jingles and showing off the wads of dough they got legally.
TikToker Pearlmania500 pulled in over six million views by describing the glitch to his wife while they were both in bed.
With rising inflation and the ever-growing cost of living, money can be tight. But there’s no easy way to just steal money from a bank. There would be way more bank robbers if that were the case. It seems that some members of the modern generation lack the financial literacy needed to know how a check works, leading to this whole snafu.
The platforms themselves aren’t helping, with TikTok leaving videos of those claiming to use the exploit up and X only adding community notes on a few of the most viral videos.
Just remember that there’s no such thing as free money, and everything you see online could be fake.
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