Crypto.com Accidentally Sent $7 Million to Customer — Sues 7 Months Later to Get It Back

Cryptocurrency exchange Crypto.com accidentally transferred about $7.26 million to a customer’s account but did not notice the error for seven months. The crypto company has now sued the customer to recover the funds.

Crypto.com Sues Customer 7 Months After Mistakenly Transferring over $7 Million

The Australian Supreme Court of Victoria released a default judgment Friday in a case where crypto exchange Crypto.com accidentally transferred more than AUD$10.47 million ($7.26 million) to a customer’s account on May 20, 2021.

The crypto firm made claims against eight defendants, including Thevamanogari Manivel, the Crypto.com customer whose account received the AUD$10.47 million in error. The court document shows that in May last year:

Instead of refunding $100 [Australian dollars] as intended, $10,474,143 was erroneously transferred … to Manivel after an account number was accidentally entered into the payment amount field.

“Extraordinarily, the plaintiffs allegedly did not realize this significant error until some 7 months later, in late December 2021,” the court document adds.

Crypto.com noticed the error when an audit was performed in December 2001 and subsequently filed a lawsuit against the customer and related parties to recover the transferred funds.

The judgment details that Manviel disbursed AUD$10,100,000 to an account held jointly with another defendant in May 2021 after receiving AUD$10.47 million from Crypto.com. On Jan 31, she transferred AUD$430K from the joint account to her daughter, Raveena Vijian.

Manviel allegedly used the money erroneously sent to her to buy a $1.35 million house in Melbourne and transferred ownership to Thilagavathy Gangadory, a different defendant. Gangadory, Manivel’s sister who resides in Malaysia, became the registered proprietor of the property on Feb. 21 this year.

Crypto.com unsuccessfully tried to freeze Gangadory’s bank accounts in March. Friday’s default judgment ordered Gangadory to pay the crypto firm $1.35 million, sell the property, and pay interest calculated from March 1 to the date of judgment.

Do you think the customer should return the funds received in error from Crypto.com? Let us know in the comments section below.

Kevin Helms

A student of Austrian Economics, Kevin found Bitcoin in 2011 and has been an evangelist ever since. His interests lie in Bitcoin security, open-source systems, network effects and the intersection between economics and cryptography.

Image Credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons