Robert Frank has the story in The Wall Street Journal:
When Paul Fischer checked his account Friday night, he had a happy surprise. His bank balance was $88,888,888,888.88. A very lucky number indeed, and close to $89 billion.
Of course, the balance was a technical error by SunTrust Bank, which quickly fixed the problem. It also may have occurred in other accounts. "You say, 'Eighty-eight billion, what can I do with that?'" said Mr. Fischer, who owns a jewelry concessionaire for Florida theme parks. "Maybe a handful of us could have brought down SunTrust Bank." Mr. Fischer had other ideas as well. Before the problem was fixed, he asked a SunTrust rep if he could move the money to an interest-bearing account until it was reclaimed and donate the interest to charity. Total interest: more than $7.3 million. The bank said no. The money was stripped out of his account by Saturday morning. "It's all gone. I'm poor again," he said. "I was a billionaire for five hours." This kind of bank error happens frequently. But Mr. Fischer raises an interesting question: What if, for five hours, you truly did have $89 billion? What would you do with the money? The ground rules are that you would have to give the money back, and whatever you bought or invested with it, after five hours.
Rico says fuck the ground rules, he'd have hit every ATM in town and max'd out his withdrawals, bought a Hummer and a lot of gubs, and been headed out of town very early on Saturday. It might've taken them a long time to find him, too...
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