Man who was accidentally paid 330 times his salary quits and disappears

Payday is always a good day, but you know what's even better? A payday when you get 330 times more money than you were expecting.

It wouldn't take long to realize the payment was a mistake, so then comes the hard part: do you do the right thing and give the money back, or go on a spending spree before the finance department realizes what they've done?

I could probably be tempted to treat myself to a good meal, but otherwise I'd just feel the money looming over me, knowing that at any second it could get ripped away.

Clearly, not everyone has that fear. I know that because one man from Chile got paid much, much more than he should have, and responded by taking the money and running away.

The situation unfolded after Consorcio Industrial de Alimentos (Cial), a company which produces cold cut meats in Chile, sent a payment of 165,398,851 Chilean pesos ($176,795) to one of their employees, instead of his usual salary of 500,000 pesos ($534.45).

Needless to say, that's quite the pay rise.

Cial attempted to rectify the situation after the human resources department spotted the banking error, and the employee, who has not been named, agreed to go to his bank the next morning to sort out the repayment, Dario Financiero reported.

The man promised to sort the payment at the bank. (Getty Stock Photo)

But when the next day came, the man did not show up to work, and his employers were unable to contact him despite their repeated efforts via call, text, and WhatsApp.

He was never heard from directly again - though he did have a lawyer get in touch to say he'd officially resigned from his position.

Cial wasn't going to go down without a fight though, and launched legal action against their former staffer to try and get the money back.

"He was informed and clarified that this money did not correspond to the payment of any service," Chilean legal documents claim, as per Diario Financiero.

The company accused the employee of misappropriation of funds with the hope of recovering some of the lost money.

Six months on from the initial payment, however, news agency IOL issued an update in December 2022 to say police had failed to locate the former employee.

For all we know, the disappearing employee could be laying low in a five-star hotel, sipping on a cocktail and living the dream off his big payday, with no plans to ever resurface.