A self-proclaimed hacker and security expert was sent nearly $250,000 by Google in a gaffe by the search giant – and the company failed to address the issue for almost a month even after being immediately contacted by the dumbfounded tech whiz.
Sam Curry – a security professional at Yuga Labs, which develops NFTs and digital collectibles – saw his bank account swell by $249,999 sometime around the end of August, he said.
The bug bounty hunter often seeks out flaws and vulnerabilities in software for companies, including Google, but said he had not done any recent work for them.
He did not spend his unearned windfall and immediately contacted the company, but did not hear back from Google for weeks. He still had the money in his account last Thursday, he said.
“It’s OK if you don’t want it back,” Curry tweeted.
The company finally acknowledged its mistake late last week and sent Curry instructions on how to return the money.
“Our team recently made a payment to the wrong party as the result of human error,” a Google spokesperson told The Post on Monday. “We appreciate that it was quickly communicated to us by the impacted partner, and we are working to correct it.”
[Written in collaboration with other media outlets with information from the following sources]
