Crypto.com accidently refunds a customer $7.2 mn, files lawsuit

Just one ‘typo’ and cryptocurrency exchange Crypto.com mistakenly issued a customer $7.2 million rather than the expected $68. This ‘overly generous’ transfer has now led to an inevitable court saga as the company now wants the money back.  

The incident happened in May 2021, when an Australian woman by the name Thevamanogari Manivel, had put in a Crypto.com refund request of around $68 and what she got was far more than she bargained for — a whopping $7.2 million at current exchange rates, which probably occurred due to an employee entering her account number into a payment section of a refund form by mistake.  

What is even more appalling is that the company took some seven months, to notice this mistake. According to a report from The Verge, Crypto.com “apparently did not identify the mistake until it carried out an audit in December, seven entire Gregorian calendar months later”.  

Manivel kept the money and reportedly transferred it to a bank account. A court granted Crypto.com a freeze on the account in February. The Guardian said in a report that most of the cash had been moved to other accounts by then, but those accounts were later frozen too.   

Meanwhile, Manivel is said to have spent approximately $890,000 on a luxurious five-bedroom home and transferred ownership of it to her sister.

Now, the company is filed a lawsuit in the Victoria Supreme Court, in the Australian state of Victoria. The court has ordered the sale of the property as soon as possible and for the funds to be returned to Crypto.com with interest. The case will return to court in October, the news website said.  

While, Crypto.com can write off the refund as an “unfortunate mistake”, the crypto lending exchange is already reeling under crisis. The cryptocurrency market has been tanking this year and the company lost $34 million in a hack way back in January hack. The Singapore-based company also laid off hundreds of employees in June this year, or nearly 5% of its workforce. Its CEO Kris Marszalek said that the company will remain “focused on executing against its roadmap and optimising for profitability”.