A MAN who became an instant millionaire overnight couldn’t believe his luck when he spotted six figures in his account.
Retired Michael Carpenter, who lives in Derbyshire, thought he had £120,000 invested in a fund with stocks firm Hargreaves Lansdown.
Asset management company Hargreaves Lansdown says the error has now been fixed[/caption]
But he was astonished after logging into the app to spot his investments had soared by more than 2,200 per cent overnight to a whopping £2 MILLION.
Michael, who has been investing in corporate bonds for several years, said he had to look “several times” at the enormous figure.
He said: “I was stunned really – I just thought, ‘Is this right?’
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“I counted up all the digits just to be completely sure and realised it was into the millions.”
But before he could spend his £2,639,800 windfall – he said he realised something might be up and contacted the firm.
“You just live in hope of something like that happening,” he said.
Despite admitting he would like to spend the fortune on travelling the world, he said he was careful to report the error – and won’t be able to keep the money.
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And he says he believes he isn’t the only investor to wake up to an astonishing figure in their account.
“Bonds can move, but it wouldn’t shift by that amount in a lifetime really,” he said.
“They do go up and down sometimes, but not nearly to that extent.”
“I knew it couldn’t be right and there must have been an error somewhere along the line,” he said.
“It wasn’t as if I could have withdrawn it – they’d notice and know something wasn’t right.
“Even if someone did try to get hold of the money they’d never get away with it.
“It would be theft.”
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He logged a complaint with Hargreaves Lansdown “straight away”.
He said: “To access that money if it was real, I’d have to sell some of the bonds or the stock”.
“I wouldn’t be able to access the money in my account by going to a bank, even if I wanted to.”
He said staff at Hargreaves Lansdown confirmed there was an issue.
“I spoke to a lady who put me on hold while she was speaking with someone else, and her colleague said it wasn’t the only problem like this,” he said.
“They’ve had other calls from people reporting the same thing, so there must be quite a big problem.”
The bond he invests in is for Wasps rugby club.
Michael wouldn’t speculate on how what he might have bought had the money been real, but said he does play the Lottery – and would spend a pay-out on a second home in Europe.
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A spokesman from Hargreaves Lansdown said: “An error in the data feed to clients’ accounts meant that the price of this particular line of stock was showing incorrectly – this has now been resolved.
“It was an isolated error, only affecting this bond holding.”
