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April Fools Sees Fake Extra Millions For Users of Brokerage Site

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the where-not-to-do-business dept.

Upstart online brokerage site Zecco had an unfortunate April Fool's day snafu that they are claiming was an honest mistake. Users logged on to find larger balances than they should have, sometimes millions of dollars extra, and many of those users started trading with the nonexistent money. Happy April Fool's Day. "... when Zecco realized it, the company apparently started to force sell, even at a loss, charging the losses to the customers along with a '$19.99 broker-assisted trading fee.' Oops."

5 of 280 comments (clear)

  1. Once again... by actionbastard · · Score: 5, Funny

    the conservative, sandwich-heavy portfolio pays off for the hungry investor. - Dr. Zoidberg

    --
    Sig this!
  2. Joke's on them by Red+Flayer · · Score: 5, Funny

    I logged in to Zecco 4/1 at around 9:30 AM... my cash-on-hand was off by about $1.6 MM (balance was 1.8 MM instead of 0.2 MM). I immediately instructed Zecco to wire me the excess funds... and the funds hit my bank account at 12:02 PM!

    As of today, the money is still in my account, but there is a hold on it. Apparently, the funds transfer was initiated properly, fully authorized... so my bank is holding the funds while I accrue interest on it until they determine final disposition.

    Oh hell, who am I kidding... I don't have 0.2 MM in an online investment account. Hell, I don't think I have 0.2 MM is assets, unless you include my wife & daughter, who I could probably sell for that much if I found a good buyer or if there was a bidding war.

    Oops... was that my out-loud voice?

    --
    "Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
    1. Re:Joke's on them by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Hell, I don't think I have 0.2 MM is assets, unless you include my wife & daughter, who I could probably sell for that much if I found a good buyer or if there was a bidding war.

      Pics?

    2. Re:Joke's on them by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Did the dollar got so low that now we are valuing things in m&ms?

  3. Re:What language should we use for our site? Perl by idontgno · · Score: 5, Funny

    I appreciate a good Perl joke as well as the next Perl hacker, but if you wedge a "_$" into your code you'll just get syntax errors. Did you mean "$_"? That error (misplaced default parameter) I've seen quite often, mostly among Perl nubs.

    I can't comment on the frequency or trend of Perl back-end systems. Most back-end systems I've worked with are J2EE.

    Next time use a strict typing language like Haskell.

    Your ideas on type-safety are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

    --
    Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.