When it rains, it pours.
A California man who mistakenly donated $15K instead of $150 later realized his blunder turned out to be a blessing in the end.
The man, who prefers to go by Michael, posted the now-viral story from his Reddit account on the r/TIFU subreddit.
The bizarre story starts off by Michael telling Reddit users about an encounter he had with a friendly neighbor — a 70-year-old Hindu priest — about a hunger charity he heads in Bangladesh.
“I wanted to support my neighbor and the charity,” Michael said.
Being the Good Samaritan Michael was, he decided to donate to the charity organization and donate $150 to “Urgent Food Relief Needed: Bangladesh.”
At least that’s what he thought.
“Moments later, I get a text on my phone warning me of an unusually large transaction on my credit card,” Michael wrote.
“I’m confused and swipe to open the text message. It says I have made a payment of $15,041 to GoFundMe. Immediately I’m sweating. How could I have donated FIFTEEN THOUSAND DOLLARS?”
Michael then retraced his steps and realized the nightmarish mishap might’ve been as simple as the mistake he could’ve avoided.
“It seems I had accidentally started typing my credit card information while my cursor was still in the donation box, and just like that 150 became 15041. Yikes,” he admitted.
Michael immediately made a call to GoFundMe’s customer service and they told him a refund would be processed.
The whopping $15K was already noticed by the charity organization before Michael’s refund was granted and GoFundMe told Michael the donation would still show in the site’s history until the refund was processed.
The man who runs the operations for the charity sent Michael pictures and videos of people graciously thanking him for the massive five-figure donation.
“Literally hundreds of photos of frail, elderly, disabled, and malnourished individuals holding signs with my name,” Michael said.
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One man even sent Michael a thank-you video on Facebook of himself surrounded by dozens of impoverished and hungry people holding bags of food.
“The man had sent me a video of himself from Bangladesh, surrounded by dozens of impoverished and hungry people holding bags of food, thanking me BY NAME (Michael) for my generous donation,” Michael wrote.
Ultimately, once the refund was processed, Michael donated $1,500 instead of giving the intended $105 after explaining his mistake to the charity.
Thankfully, the charity’s host was “incredibly gracious and understanding,” Michael said, telling him the $1,500 still made an impact on the community.
But the story didn’t end there.
Michael’s Reddit post ended up going viral and caught the attention of users all across the world.
One notable YouTuber drew even more attention to Michael’s Reddit in a video as part of their “Reading Reddit Stories” series, in which moved more people to donate.
“Heard the story of the guy on reddit who accidentally donated 15,000 instead of 150, but bumped it up to 1500. Great story, wanted to do my part,” one donor said.
The intended target of $26,108 posted to the GoFundMe site was surpassed, and the organization has raised $36,520.
“The guilty feeling never quite went away when the donation went from $15,000 to $1,500 — but it certainly has now,” Michael told Today.
“The online community more than covered for me and now I feel so proud of this whole story.”
