World's first trillionaires - for a few hours

October 4, 2013 -- In east Texas, Reggie Theus checked his bank account as he always does, except this time there were quite a few more zeros than usual.

Theus says he had more than $4 trillion in his account. Unfortunately, it turns out the fortune was the result of an online banking glitch.

"Well, I was definitely surprised when I looked in my account and saw that much money in there," Theus said. "I looked it up and there's never been a trillionaire before. So I think technically I may be the first ever.

"I logged out and logged back in eight times just to see if it was still there, and every time it was still there," he said. "The exact same number."

The temporary trillionaire is the first in the world -- beating out Bill Gates. But for now, Theus is just a regular area director for Newk's in East Texas. So who caused the major mistake? The bank is asking Theus to Keep that to himself.

In Tupelo Miss., Bancorp South customers including Brandon Frazier, were met with the same error.

"I just got paid that morning, so I was checking to see how much my paycheck was," he said.

Frazier says he checks his bank account about three times a week sometimes on his mobile device.

"It feels awesome, I mean, laughter. It's something that doesn't happen every day, so it's a good feeling, you know, until it goes away," he said.

Frazier wasn't the only Bancorp South customer who woke up an instant trillionaire. Allie Ware, a member of a Tupelo TV news team, also saw a few extra zeros in her bank account balance.

"Well, for one second when I didn't realize that it was $4 trillion, I thought maybe for one second," she said.

But Ware says reality quickly set in after examining the matter more closely. .

"Then I saw all the zeros and just laughed because I knew that was not true," she said.

Bancorp South did realize the error and in a statement Wednesday said in part, "Online banking customers' deposit account balances reflected overstated balance totals for a short period of time this morning before being corrected. This was a system display issue and did not reflect the actual account balance available to those customers."

But that didn't stop customers from taking a moment to imagine the endless possibilities of being a trillionaire .

"First thing I thought about was giving back to the community, pay all my debts and try and make more money from winning that money, so that would be nice," Frazier said.

One costumer who found $40 trillion in her bank account in the Morning, but like the other customers, was back to normal by lunch time.

Get more Strange »

strange

• Comment Now
• Email
• Print
• Report a typo
•