April Fools Sees Fake Extra Millions For Users of Brokerage Site

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."

Comments

Re:What language should we use for our site? Perl

[MillionthMonkey]

Perl's type system was developed by hippies under the influence of drugs that impair one's ability to distinguish between strings and floating point numbers.

Re:I see the problem

[Un pobre guey]

You are neglecting the fact that computers keep track of this, not humans. Any transactions that would have gone through with your own money could be easily respected. Anything more, bam!

All these emotional arguments (yours and the many others on this thread) about the legitimacy of using money that is not yours, that it was confusing, that it was April Fool's Day, finders keepers, etc. are ridiculous. I have had erroneous transactions that deposit money in my bank account that got reverted one or a few days later. I certainly did not consider it my money.

Imagine yourself at a hearing before a judge in a court of law and you are blabbering on about how you were confused at the extra $8,674 and decided you might as well spend it, or that you thought it was an April Fool's Day joke and decided to play along making "joke trades," or that since Zecco put the money in your account it's "too fucking bad, Dude the money's mine now." I'd hate to be your lawyer.