Speaker 1: Approache Production Episode one, The Outback rock Star. This is
Speaker 1: a pretty unreal story. When I first heard it, I
Speaker 1: actually didn't believe it. It's the story of a normal
Speaker 1: Aussie bloke who some might call lucky, some might call stupid,
Speaker 1: or some might call a criminal. His name is Dan Saunders,
Speaker 1: and I first heard his story listening to the radio
Speaker 1: one day driving my kids to school.
Speaker 2: Imagine you find a loophole and that loophole enabled at
Speaker 2: one point the million dollars, or whether the money had
Speaker 2: an adm of money.
Speaker 1: I called bullshit and thought there's no way this could
Speaker 1: be true. And then I did what every inquisitive mind
Speaker 1: does and googled him and boom, there it was. It
Speaker 1: wasn't a lie. It was so unbelievably the truth. It
Speaker 1: wasn't funny Alarican who fleeced a major bank of more
Speaker 1: than one and a half million dollars, now.
Speaker 2: The ATMG who discovered a loophole in the banking system
Speaker 2: that he exploited in a wild space.
Speaker 1: This is not your everyday true crime podcast. Sure there's
Speaker 1: been a crime that nobody's died, nobody's missing, And to
Speaker 1: be honest, as these episodes unfold, some might even question
Speaker 1: whether it really was a crime. There will be moments
Speaker 1: in this podcast where you might ask yourself, what would
Speaker 1: I do? Would I do what Dan did?
Speaker 2: I'm gonna probably go to jail now for what I'm doing.
Speaker 2: Let's really test this glitch out. Let's take the Ferrari
Speaker 2: for a drop.
Speaker 1: I once heard a comedian say that there are more
Speaker 1: true crime podcasts than actual true crimes, and I reckon,
Speaker 1: He's not far from the truth. But this story is
Speaker 1: not your run of the mill true crime podcast. As
Speaker 1: the story unravels, you'll see why lots of producers, the
Speaker 1: movie types are chasing this down as a movie. Why
Speaker 1: because it has all the hallmarks of a great story.
Speaker 1: Sex Like was just saying to me repeatedly, think about
Speaker 1: this swinging in jail, think about this swing. You're in
Speaker 1: jail drugs.
Speaker 2: There's a drug guy black. If you want drugs, you
Speaker 2: go to that guy.
Speaker 1: What conroll?
Speaker 2: If I went out for lunch being massive tip, I'd
Speaker 2: pay for another table as well lots of cash. You know.
Speaker 2: In fact, months later I did transfer three lots of
Speaker 2: nine hundred thousand, just to see what had happened and
Speaker 2: sticking it to the big guy. Looks like me, and
Speaker 2: there's a lot of.
Speaker 1: Us who if.
Speaker 2: There's an inch, we'll take it.
Speaker 1: As a hero and a villain who are possibly the
Speaker 1: same person. That person is Dan Saunders, and this is
Speaker 1: the glitch. It's much taller than I thought you'd bet. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I get that a lot. Yeah yeah, I thought you
Speaker 1: were like, yeah, six floors, Yeah cool, let's go up.
Speaker 1: Have you been here before?
Speaker 2: I don't think that that's.
Speaker 1: An awesome hotel. Dan and I met to record this
Speaker 1: podcast in a Brisbane hotel suite. We had a bunch
Speaker 1: of calls and about a million texts before we sat down.
Speaker 1: The hotel was called the Ovelo in the Valley in Brisbane. Now.
Speaker 1: The Valley is the party district of Brisbane in Australia,
Speaker 1: lots of clubs and bars and some really nice hotels
Speaker 1: and some pretty ordinary ones too. The room we arranged
Speaker 1: was called the rock Star Suite, which was fitting because
Speaker 1: over the space of four months, Dan lived the life
Speaker 1: of a rock star on someone else's cash.
Speaker 2: You know, I don't want to be walking around and going,
Speaker 2: oh that's you know, that's atm boy.
Speaker 1: I don't care about that stuff.
Speaker 2: But in terms of his story, it's got legs, Yeah,
Speaker 2: world wide legs.
Speaker 1: If Dan had a theme song back in twenty eleven,
Speaker 1: it probably would have been that really cheesy song from
Speaker 1: Nickelback that was big in two thousand and nine. In
Speaker 1: one of the many calls I had with Dan getting
Speaker 1: ready for the recording session, he dropped that bombshell, can
Speaker 1: we get that Nickelback song licensed for this podcast? Bear us?
Speaker 1: So we didn't get Nickelback, but I did get a
Speaker 1: mate to sing the song. Our budgets aren't as big
Speaker 1: as Dan's were when he had the magic ATM card.
Speaker 1: You might be thinking Dan sounds like a bit of
Speaker 1: a knob, but I challenge you not to like the
Speaker 1: guy by the end of this podcast. Before that one
Speaker 1: night when he went to an ATM, took out two
Speaker 1: hundred bucks of the bank's money, which over the period
Speaker 1: of four months came more than one point six million dollars,
Speaker 1: all because of the glitch. Before all that, let's find
Speaker 1: out who Dan Saunders is. I was able to establish
Speaker 1: right now. Dan's living in Byron Bay, are at least
Speaker 1: close to Byron Bay. He's living with mates who seem
Speaker 1: to be professionals, and he's come to visit me to
Speaker 1: do this podcast interview. He decided he'd stay in Brisbane
Speaker 1: for a few days at another very high end hotel.
Speaker 1: I was curious about how he still does this, You
Speaker 1: Dodgy's still down on it.
Speaker 2: I've got to protect my friends. Yeah, good, because yeah,
Speaker 2: they've stuck with me through.
Speaker 1: And these are friends throughout the ordeal.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, they're friends throughout the audio. But they're also
Speaker 2: like friends who like they're you know, they're professionals. You know,
Speaker 2: my mates with me the other day's like don't say
Speaker 2: my name. And also it's like about yeah, it's just
Speaker 2: about like there's so much disconnection now, you know, you
Speaker 2: find people in connecting.
Speaker 1: And you want to stick with them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's when you go to jail. People are bannon you.
Speaker 2: People you wouldn't think there's people in your life who
Speaker 2: you'd think would be by you, thick and thin, and
Speaker 2: the fact is they wouldn't.
Speaker 1: You'll hear a fair bit of that in this podcast.
Speaker 1: Friends that's stuck around and then friends, lovers and people
Speaker 1: he hardly knew just up and leave. And yes, you
Speaker 1: heard right, Dan ended up in jail, But that didn't
Speaker 1: happen the way you think it happened. There are a
Speaker 1: heap of twists and turns before Dan gets locked up.
Speaker 1: To understand Dan, I reckon, it's important to go back
Speaker 1: to his childhood. How did he grow up?
Speaker 2: My biggest memory from growing up is sport in the street.
Speaker 2: Like I think I was probably one of the last
Speaker 2: children that had to be home by the time of streetlights.
Speaker 2: We're not you know that kind of thing. We're just
Speaker 2: outside all day, just suburban Melbourne. And yeah we play
Speaker 2: you know, crookt in the straight and you know, like
Speaker 2: hold the baller, you know, cars coming, you know that
Speaker 2: kind of stuff. You know, average had mom and dad
Speaker 2: at home. You know, we didn't have a heap of
Speaker 2: money or anything. But you know, I remember me and
Speaker 2: a kid and always thinking about, oh, you know what
Speaker 2: if we lived in a bigger house and now that
Speaker 2: kind of thing, but like we could eat put it
Speaker 2: that way, and I think, as long as you can
Speaker 2: eat your all, right, right.
Speaker 1: What did Dan Saunders want to be when he grew up?
Speaker 2: I think for a change over years, I think so.
Speaker 2: I think it probably started with a footy player, you know,
Speaker 2: like an AFL footy player, just because you know, my
Speaker 2: dad used to used to love footing and we used
Speaker 2: to go and all that kind of thing. Two weeks
Speaker 2: in into my life, I went to Prince's Park and
Speaker 2: I was underneath the put underneath the wooden wooden seats
Speaker 2: at Princess Park and beer can rolled into my bassinette.
Speaker 2: So from then on it was beer in football.
Speaker 3: The third at Princess Park five and a half but
Speaker 3: it's gone and kind of wood leading Hawthorne by three points.
Speaker 1: So Dan wanted to be a footy star as a kid.
Speaker 1: An AFL footy star could definitely live the life of
Speaker 1: a rock star. Good money, lots of girls, and a
Speaker 1: bit of notoriety or maybe even fame. It's not lost
Speaker 1: on me that Dan got all of that and didn't
Speaker 1: have to do a pre season training or kick a ball.
Speaker 1: He just had to head to the ATM. As you
Speaker 1: can hear, Dan sounds pretty normal, not the mastermind crime
Speaker 1: figure you might expect when you first started listening to
Speaker 1: this podcast.
Speaker 2: When you work out, school is basically just a you know,
Speaker 2: it's basically a a like a conditioning or an interview
Speaker 2: for work. You know you've got to be there at
Speaker 2: a certain time. You get a desk, someone gives you
Speaker 2: a pen, license halfway through and you think you're important,
Speaker 2: you know what, You get to work and you're like, oh,
Speaker 2: it's just the same shit. Like so it's pretty Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean, once you work that out, if you're aware
Speaker 2: enough to work that out as a young kid, how
Speaker 2: can you really get mind? I mean, but that's just
Speaker 2: my opinion.
Speaker 1: As we're preparing for this interview, we went backwards and
Speaker 1: forwards with texts, and those texts continue to this day,
Speaker 1: little texts that helped build a character of who Dan is.
Speaker 1: In some of the texts I've had with Dan, he
Speaker 1: seems pretty and the establishment. He's got a distaste for banks, obviously,
Speaker 1: and I think in my chats with him, he's not
Speaker 1: happy when big corporations stick it to what he terms
Speaker 1: the little people.
Speaker 2: It wasn't all what. It wasn't always at the end
Speaker 2: for me personally, it wasn't even personal experience. I dated
Speaker 2: a paramedic. She said to me one night because she's
Speaker 2: doing the night shift and she set off, you know,
Speaker 2: full moon tonight and it's and it's the footy finals.
Speaker 2: I'm like, yeah, okay, the full moon people, gup, it's bare,
Speaker 2: but what about the footy finals? She's like, oh, always
Speaker 2: more domestics. What are you talking about? She's like, yeah,
Speaker 2: like fifty percent more call outs for domestics when the
Speaker 2: foot is on. I'm like, like, that's something I've always
Speaker 2: got behind as a kid. I'm not saying you should
Speaker 2: watch football. I'm just saying that, how can you get
Speaker 2: behind it? As a like, you know, every time I
Speaker 2: watch footy now I think about that. Yeah, and that
Speaker 2: doesn't come from anywhere except just the horse's mouth, you know,
Speaker 2: like you know, it was just a passing comment. But
Speaker 2: I was like, oh, that's crazy.
Speaker 1: I was pretty confused by this story from Dan. I
Speaker 1: think what Dan was trying to say was don't believe
Speaker 1: everything you hear. What I did get out of Dan's
Speaker 1: paramedic story is that he's a pretty deep thinker.
Speaker 2: Oh I don't know about that, Like like I wouldn't,
Speaker 2: you know, Like it depends, like if you put me
Speaker 2: in a think bubble at Google, they probably you know,
Speaker 2: say who's the guy. But you know, like, I think
Speaker 2: I've got a certain amount of street smarts. I think
Speaker 2: I got a job at the casino when I was
Speaker 2: and one of the first things I saw at the
Speaker 2: casino was this lady was playing the poke kids. Old
Speaker 2: Italian woman.
Speaker 3: She was.
Speaker 2: Like distressed. You could see she had a problem, Like
Speaker 2: she was like, you know, she was a bit twitchy,
Speaker 2: and she was just like you could see I was
Speaker 2: only working in a restaurant like across the way. She
Speaker 2: dropped out on the poke machine. Like her skull hit
Speaker 2: the machine like with this force of like a brick,
Speaker 2: and she fell to the floor and she was dead right,
Speaker 2: And as an eighteen year old was seeing that, I
Speaker 2: was like, once she was on the ground, everyone of course,
Speaker 2: you know, suitably freaked out around it. Then they called
Speaker 2: the security and the paramedics and so everyone came and
Speaker 2: then they were working on it. Then they put up
Speaker 2: a screen, right, you know when you go to the
Speaker 2: races and they put up a screen when a horse
Speaker 2: does its leg and has to be put down. Right,
Speaker 2: they did that in the casino for the woman, right,
Speaker 2: put her on the stretcher and then wheeled her out
Speaker 2: like all in the space of you know, fifteen minutes,
Speaker 2: forty five minutes later, there was the screen had been cleaned.
Speaker 2: Someone else was playing the pogriage, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: I was like, what's going on here?
Speaker 1: So Dan was a normal Aussie knock about kid. Pretty
Speaker 1: standard family with his mom and his dad, who were
Speaker 1: both pretty straight laced.
Speaker 2: So my dad was in TV and the media. He
Speaker 2: taught me about the media at the very very young age.
Speaker 2: Never let the truth get in front of a good story.
Speaker 2: My mom was a childcare worker. Yeah, so dad used
Speaker 2: to read the news on Channel ten when it was
Speaker 2: called Channel Zeros.
Speaker 3: Topless or drama followeens in Street. Then at age thirty,
Speaker 3: there's ghostly laughs when Peter O'Toole Darren Hanna and Steve
Speaker 3: Gutenberg Starr in ten's premiere Wednesday movie High Spirits.
Speaker 2: I just remember it was sort of it was one
Speaker 2: night I was magic. You know. It was kind of
Speaker 2: like a magical thing because he was in the room
Speaker 2: next to us, but the news was on, you know,
Speaker 2: like because he'd done all the news breaks or whatever.
Speaker 2: When you close to your dad, Yeah, it was yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: very close.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: We used to Yeah, we just go to footy all
Speaker 2: the time, used to play play golf a bit. You know.
Speaker 2: My dad used to say all the time, you say,
Speaker 2: just go with the fly, just you know, don't worry
Speaker 2: too much, like you know, if something's going to happen,
Speaker 2: it will invariably happen. You just got to be you know,
Speaker 2: positive and move forward with it. At the end of
Speaker 2: the day, it doesn't matter if you've got you know,
Speaker 2: ten thousand dollars or ten million dollars, it doesn't matter
Speaker 2: like it, it doesn't change you as as a person.
Speaker 2: And that's probably what you know he instilled in me
Speaker 2: pretty early on.
Speaker 1: Did you learn that lesson? Throughout this The way that.
Speaker 2: People change is insane, Like around money. I couldn't even
Speaker 2: begin to tell you how much. Like I could tell
Speaker 2: you a few stories about how people change, but yeah,
Speaker 2: like it's like a complete one.
Speaker 1: Ad no trouble with the law, and although Dan wasn't
Speaker 1: going to become a banker or a lawyer, he wasn't dumb,
Speaker 1: but his interests laid more in sport. Before the glitch,
Speaker 1: Dan had only broken the law once and was never caught.
Speaker 1: In reality, it's it's actually likely that most of us
Speaker 1: have done something similar.
Speaker 2: Prior to this is I've done probably two things wrong
Speaker 2: that I was never I was never caught for first one,
Speaker 2: I think I was five. I remember Mum saying, oh,
Speaker 2: there's there's beautiful bedspreads at wherever the shop was, and now.
Speaker 2: We went to the shop and she said, I can't
Speaker 2: afford it this week, but I'll you know, we'll get
Speaker 2: we'll get it soon. I looked at the beds person.
Speaker 2: I was like, oh, they're there, Why don't you just
Speaker 2: take them out? So well, I waited for him to
Speaker 2: walk off, and then I just grabbed him. I was like, oh,
Speaker 2: I was just you know, and you know, halfway down
Speaker 2: the street, I'm like, oh, I've got those bedspreads. Man.
Speaker 2: She's like, what are you doing?
Speaker 1: You know, take it back.
Speaker 2: You know, my mum's never done anything wrong in our.
Speaker 1: Life, unlike Dan's atm card Glitch. We never really heard
Speaker 1: about the great bedspread robbery of the eighties on a
Speaker 1: current affair. So let's put that down to a misdemeanor
Speaker 1: of a young kid at five trying to do the
Speaker 1: right thing by his mum. And how was she when
Speaker 1: she found out about all of this?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, she just said What did she say? She
Speaker 2: said something like, well, you're going to have to lie
Speaker 2: in it now, aren't you. You know you've done the
Speaker 2: wrong thing and now you know, And I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 2: well I guess. So she said, oh, you're probably going
Speaker 2: to go to jail, and I'm like, yeah, I probably will,
Speaker 2: and at least you know where I am. She gives
Speaker 2: that's true.
Speaker 1: There was another time when police came knocking, this time
Speaker 1: for something more serious.
Speaker 2: Look, the only time I talked with the police officer
Speaker 2: was when they told me my father had passed away.
Speaker 2: Just got home from school and you're knock at the door.
Speaker 2: Pretty weird because mum and dad is still at work
Speaker 2: and two cops at the front door, and I'm like
Speaker 2: always in my head's going, oh, you didn't do anything wrong,
Speaker 2: Just answer, it's all right. So yeah, I answered the
Speaker 2: door and yeah, they said, you know, is John Waters
Speaker 2: live here? And I said, oh, yeah he does. And
Speaker 2: I said do you need to come in? And they're like, yeah,
Speaker 2: probably better and they just yeah, they told me that
Speaker 2: he had a heart attack and he was yeah, he
Speaker 2: was sort of dead before he hit the ground, and yeah,
Speaker 2: just started walking down the street. So yeah, it was
Speaker 2: fifty two. Mum used to work not too far away,
Speaker 2: So yeah, I went in the car and yeah, time
Speaker 2: of Conker went to the scene, and yeah, I saw
Speaker 2: he used to wear these R and Williams boots. I
Speaker 2: saw them sort of poking out the bottom of the
Speaker 2: White Sheet, and.
Speaker 1: Yeah, John's death affected the family. They packed up the
Speaker 1: family home in Melbourne and moved to the Sunshine Coast
Speaker 1: in Queensland to a place called Kawana Waters in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two. Kawana Waters is a really affluent place with
Speaker 1: big houses on the canals and luxurious lifestyles for those
Speaker 1: that live there. But back when Dan moved there with
Speaker 1: his family, it was a little different, like.
Speaker 2: Very it's a different life up there, like you if
Speaker 2: you grabub in Melbourne or Sydney, very different life on
Speaker 2: the Sunshine Coast, like you know, right near the beach.
Speaker 2: Not really many people pushing too hard up there, you know,
Speaker 2: Like as a kid in Melbourne or Sydney, you're really
Speaker 2: told that, you know, if you don't get your education,
Speaker 2: like you're going to be in a big pool and
Speaker 2: you're not going to know what to do. So there's
Speaker 2: that big fear factor in regards to that. But on
Speaker 2: the Sunshine Coast it was there was I remember that
Speaker 2: was Newer States and stuff, and all the kids were
Speaker 2: just to organize a party and just infiltrated big park
Speaker 2: on the new estate and just it'd be full, like
Speaker 2: it'd be cop centered up. They'd be like nine hundred
Speaker 2: kids in this park sipping from goomsacks like it just
Speaker 2: good time, good time. That was a loose time. That
Speaker 2: was probably looser than the ATM time. That was loose. Yeah,
Speaker 2: like kids can.
Speaker 1: Die the looser than the ATM time.
Speaker 2: Pretty loose.
Speaker 1: I know there's lots of detail about Dan as a
Speaker 1: kid in the start of this podcast, but I think
Speaker 1: it's important to show what sort of bloke he was.
Speaker 1: He wasn't some sort of criminal mastermind. He was just
Speaker 1: a normal kid doing normal stuff. He was lucky to
Speaker 1: escape the Sunshine Coast with no issues. He moved back
Speaker 1: to Melbourne. He got a job at Nando's and then
Speaker 1: some other random hospitality jobs before he got a job
Speaker 1: at Melbourne's Crown Casino.
Speaker 2: And so the casino is the most beautiful way to
Speaker 2: cut yourself off socially from everyone who really cares about you.
Speaker 2: So you do a twenty four hour rotating roster with
Speaker 2: eight thousand other like minded people and good experience for
Speaker 2: terms of hospitality skills and things like that. I started
Speaker 2: in food and beverage. So yeah, a very very loose environment.
Speaker 2: Like you know, it looks very official and it's probably
Speaker 2: toned down a bit now, but you know, we used
Speaker 2: to have missed that. Bosses. It just go off, you know,
Speaker 2: after work and go straight back onto the game before
Speaker 2: and start playing blackjack.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: The first thing I said to you is that you're
Speaker 2: not allowed a game, but plenty of people get.
Speaker 1: You would have seen some big money go through that.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I saw David Hasselhoff once with a big Macca's
Speaker 2: bag for cash. Loved it. I thought, that's great. I
Speaker 2: want to do that one day. But I loved it,
Speaker 2: like I was like, oh, David Hasselhoff just just cruising.
Speaker 2: It was just cruising around the casino, flought, just playing
Speaker 2: blackjack with this Max bag for a cash, beautiful.
Speaker 1: A Macca's bag. Yeah, yeah, you're David Hasselhoff.
Speaker 2: But back then, now I reckon it would be something nice.
Speaker 2: He means whatever, But now I don't know. I think
Speaker 2: back then he was still he was still amazed that
Speaker 2: he was famous. He was like, he was like, yeah, okay,
Speaker 2: I'm going to I'm loving this, you know. Very it
Speaker 2: was a very loose time. We see it. Every night
Speaker 2: we'd finish work eleven o'clock twelve o'clock and we'd go
Speaker 2: out to five am and then we do it. You know,
Speaker 2: we used to wear it like a like a badge
Speaker 2: of honor. You know, it was like the stamp for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.
Speaker 1: How loose is loose? Just like I think when you're
Speaker 1: without incriminating yourself.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean when you just when it's just a
Speaker 2: bit of a party, like you don't know what's going
Speaker 2: to happen. It's just you know, you're not being overtly
Speaker 2: dangerous in any way, but it's just like, you know,
Speaker 2: we're going to go and get a bit loose, like
Speaker 2: we're just not you know, we could end up in
Speaker 2: you know, you'd wake up in you know, hider work,
Speaker 2: you know, like another suburb in Melbourne and go how
Speaker 2: the hell did out get here? Like what happened last night?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 2: I remember we used to walk around the gaming floor
Speaker 2: a crown with like bourbon and coax in like pint glasses.
Speaker 1: Drugs.
Speaker 2: It wasn't really my thing, but but yeah, like it
Speaker 2: was definitely definitely but less less so more more just
Speaker 2: sort of.
Speaker 1: And so back in those days, without trying to call
Speaker 1: it too early, I think, you know, cocaine wasn't a
Speaker 1: massive thing right, It was probably pills and weed.
Speaker 2: But also I mean we didn't you know, I didn't
Speaker 2: really have the bankroll for that kind of stuff, you know,
Speaker 2: like that that kind of thing is you know, it's
Speaker 2: very Yeah, it can be very costly if you're doing
Speaker 2: it over and over again, but mostly just high on life.
Speaker 2: You know, it's a good time. It's just you know,
Speaker 2: it's having having fun connecting with people. It's not about
Speaker 2: you know, to be to be friends with someone and
Speaker 2: not be friends because you know they drive the right
Speaker 2: car or they do this or do that. You know,
Speaker 2: like it's just we're just you know, a couple of
Speaker 2: lads just having a bit of fun. It's great. I
Speaker 2: had a boss at the casino and he said, I'm
Speaker 2: running a nightclub, now, why don't you come across. I
Speaker 2: was like, yeah, okay, all right. Crowns pretty much we got.
Speaker 2: We got caught at Crown swimming in the hotel pool.
Speaker 2: Apparently that's like if you work there, So we got yeah,
Speaker 2: sort of they wanted to get rid of us, but
Speaker 2: someone saved us and we just got a written morning.
Speaker 2: And because whilst we used to get pissed and stuff,
Speaker 2: we're actually quite good at our jobs, so he asked
Speaker 2: me to come across. It was placed called Watermark Bar,
Speaker 2: which is incidentally on the bottom of the NAB headquarters
Speaker 2: in Docklands in Melbourne.
Speaker 1: The Watermark Docklands is a stylish event and function space,
Speaker 1: or at least that's what their website says. In the
Speaker 1: heart of the Docklands, it's a cool looking venue for
Speaker 1: TVs above the bar that would show the latst footage
Speaker 1: game or film clip and it would become a regular
Speaker 1: haunt for Dan and the Crown mates, both before the
Speaker 1: glitch and after. Dan met lots of his mates at
Speaker 1: Crown and also met a girl. Her name was Bell,
Speaker 1: and pretty early on it was serious.
Speaker 2: She actually worked at the casino when I worked there,
Speaker 2: but we never met. We had a great connection and
Speaker 2: it's very funny.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she was great, so serious they planned on getting married.
Speaker 1: They did what any planning on getting married couple does.
Speaker 1: They started a joint bank account and moved closer to family.
Speaker 1: Bell was studying to be a teacher, so she went
Speaker 1: to live with a family in a tiny Victorian town
Speaker 1: of glen Rowan. Bell was also religious and so were
Speaker 1: a family, so Dan moved close by to work in
Speaker 1: the town of Wangaratta, while Belle lived with her folks
Speaker 1: in glen Rowan, which is about fifteen minutes up the road.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she was sort of getting homesick and so she
Speaker 2: decided that she was going to move back home, and
Speaker 2: I sort of, yeah, I followed.
Speaker 1: Because how often would you see each other like you
Speaker 1: living in wang Yeah, we.
Speaker 2: Didn't see each other heaps. Okay that because of that,
Speaker 2: And yeah, she had quite a religious family, so we
Speaker 2: can have sleep over her place or anything like that.
Speaker 2: So it was a bit. Yeah, it was a bit different,
Speaker 2: but we'd already lived together before, all right, it wasn't
Speaker 2: like there wasn't that thing. Well, we knew what it
Speaker 2: was going to be like, but it was only going
Speaker 2: to be like that for so long.
Speaker 1: And then talk to me about your mates in Wangaratta
Speaker 1: at that stage, Yeah, well.
Speaker 2: I was good friends with their brother. The only other
Speaker 2: people I met was at work because I didn't Yeah,
Speaker 2: I didn't know anyone else where were you working? I
Speaker 2: was working at a place called the West Side Tavern.
Speaker 2: I had a job earlier than that in a place
Speaker 2: called Beachworth, a place called the Green Shed, and that's
Speaker 2: where I met my chef friend his name was Mark,
Speaker 2: but it was a bit far to a beachway. So
Speaker 2: when the job came up in Wangaratda, it's funny town
Speaker 2: because not a lot of hospitality, not a lot of
Speaker 2: full time gigs.
Speaker 1: West Side Tavern. What is it that it look like?
Speaker 2: I think that from all reports, I've tried to judge
Speaker 2: it up a bit. Yeah, back in the day, very plain,
Speaker 2: like it almost looked like, you know, one of those
Speaker 2: display homes that you go to a village and there's
Speaker 2: a display home with the red brick kind of like that. Yeah,
Speaker 2: like clean and nice, but very you know, like like
Speaker 2: they put it up in the middle of nowhere. But
Speaker 2: it was solid. It had solid foundations and a good yeah, good,
Speaker 2: good drinking crew. There was hardly any trouble there, Like,
Speaker 2: it wasn't that kind of place. It was like you
Speaker 2: knew if you went there. It was just very It
Speaker 2: was very basic, comfortable style. It wasn't you know, no
Speaker 2: one was too loud there or anything like that. It wasn't.
Speaker 2: It was a nice, respectable in I thought.
Speaker 1: I'd call the West Side Tavern and see if Dan
Speaker 1: was a bit of a local legend at the pub.
Speaker 1: After all, this story has been around for a while.
Speaker 1: Their Facebook page looks like it's had a bit of
Speaker 1: an update. It's got five hundred followers. When I called
Speaker 1: them on a Wednesday, AVO, the pub was in full swing.
Speaker 1: There were seven people there, a few having a punt
Speaker 1: and the rest just regulars, probably having there after work FB.
Speaker 2: Yeah, regularly, you know people who come in and you
Speaker 2: know a few horse trainers from the local track. There
Speaker 2: was a few characters there. It was a nice place.
Speaker 2: It wasn't It wasn't a place where I sort of felt,
Speaker 2: you know, I've worked places before where I've been like,
Speaker 2: you know, you've got to be on your guard here
Speaker 2: because like someone might glass you. Like it's a bit
Speaker 2: of a ship joint. It was nice energy there, you know,
Speaker 2: not in the terms of like you know, obviously everyone's
Speaker 2: drinking away their problems. That's what you know, that's what
Speaker 2: a pubby is basically. But yeah, I mean in terms
Speaker 2: of like everyone was reasonably civil. You know, like the
Speaker 2: Garbo would get there at ten am, and he'd be
Speaker 2: there at ten am every day, you know, for his
Speaker 2: two and then he'd head off and then you know,
Speaker 2: Jeff from the factory to heat in get It's like
Speaker 2: the same day. But you know, yeah, I just see
Speaker 2: the new which bit yeah which bitch. Oh, you know,
Speaker 2: it's just well it's not how it used to be.
Speaker 2: Another another, another cart and dryer. Ye, perfect, great, you
Speaker 2: know that kind of stuff. And yeah, you know, just
Speaker 2: humble people going about their business and very very non
Speaker 2: script very you know, the type of plays. If a
Speaker 2: if a female walks in and she's a you know,
Speaker 2: she's she's easy on the eye, the fucking world stops.
Speaker 2: Everyone goes ship, what is happening here? Yeah, that kind
Speaker 2: of true.
Speaker 1: And there was one other feature of that particular pub
Speaker 1: or in as you like to call it, that became
Speaker 1: a bit of a downfall.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, the tap.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, that's yeah. So this is where you can
Speaker 1: punt on pretty much anything you like. Yeah, back in
Speaker 1: the day, horses, dogs, whatever.
Speaker 2: Yeah, while you can drinking.
Speaker 1: That was a beautiful line or face the first Okay,
Speaker 1: enough of the backstory, let's get into the night. Dan
Speaker 1: found out that he had a magic ATM card that
Speaker 1: could give him endless amounts of cash and let him
Speaker 1: live the life of a rock star, a life like
Speaker 1: that time he saw the hof walking through the Crown
Speaker 1: Casino with a Maca's bag full of cash allegedly. So
Speaker 1: let's talk about that night. You're at the pub, you're working.
Speaker 2: Yeah, west sides having pulling beers, and it was.
Speaker 1: Like it's like a Tuesday night so on, so middle
Speaker 1: of the week night.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, very very subdued, not much activity at all. Yeah,
Speaker 2: a few people just sort of finishing up their fish
Speaker 2: and chips in the corner.
Speaker 1: So bar shuts at nine point thirty ten.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it just shuts when everyone stops drinking. Really,
Speaker 2: so then yeah, I just cashed up and went Yeah,
Speaker 2: because I was held responsible position, I was cashed up.
Speaker 1: Means basically, yeah, the transaction.
Speaker 2: Saw the till, reconciled the tab and yeah, just basically
Speaker 2: I sought everything out, put it all in the safe.
Speaker 2: You're a pretty trustworthy guy, Yeah, well yeah, I mean
Speaker 2: there was nothing like, there was nothing not to trust
Speaker 2: me with it.
Speaker 1: You know what sort of cash turns over in a
Speaker 1: pub like that on a Tuesday night.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah. It was like you know, like I think
Speaker 2: you'd notice if you took money, because it's like, you know,
Speaker 2: if you take fifty dollars out of four hundred, like
Speaker 2: it's a fair bit, right, So.
Speaker 1: Not turn out the hundreds of thousands of dollars or anything.
Speaker 2: It's not a lot of money. I went to a
Speaker 2: place called the Bull's Head, which is in one Garader
Speaker 2: still there, you know, because as long as we were
Speaker 2: spending money, he'd stay open. I think. I think sometimes
Speaker 2: we stayed there till like one or two o'clock in
Speaker 2: the morning, when he normally be closed at you know,
Speaker 2: eleven thirty. Matt my my friend. He was a chef
Speaker 2: at Beachworth who I'd previously worked with and had we
Speaker 2: had a good report, brought together by the love of
Speaker 2: the Golden Ale. Not Golden Ale, that's horrible, but yeah,
Speaker 2: so we used to love a few beers and we'd
Speaker 2: go go together and yeah, so I was at I
Speaker 2: was at the pub with Mark Payday Wednesday. It's payday
Speaker 2: on Wednesdays, so it was things are a bit lan
Speaker 2: in the old account. So Mark shouted the first few
Speaker 2: and I was like, I'm going to go and try
Speaker 2: and get some money out because you know, and he
Speaker 2: was also like, you know, pay for some beers you
Speaker 2: Mark Inn Yeah, fair cool, I'll head out to the ATM.
Speaker 2: So I wasn't sure because I knew that I transferred
Speaker 2: a little bit of money to the joint account, so
Speaker 2: I wasn't sure how much was in there. I was
Speaker 2: pretty sure it was like three dollars. It wasn't a
Speaker 2: lot of money, but I tried to get a balance
Speaker 2: donetheless on my savings account and it wouldn't give me one,
Speaker 2: just said balance in my albod this time. And by
Speaker 2: this time it's probably, yeah, eleven past twelve.
Speaker 1: On eleven minutes past twelve on that Wednesday morning. How
Speaker 1: do you remember that exact detail?
Speaker 2: It's probably pretty good, it's pretty good, but the whole
Speaker 2: thing is like a yeah, I mean, I don't define
Speaker 2: my life on this, but it's like it's definitely a
Speaker 2: period that I was wide for sound during that time,
Speaker 2: and I could tell you everything, like every single thing
Speaker 2: pretty much exactly the time it happened.
Speaker 1: This is a National Australia Bank ATM. Yeah, you banked
Speaker 1: with the NAB.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1: Your joint account was with the NAB too, So all
Speaker 1: banking was through NAB. Yeah, yeah, everything.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, like one could say my complete
Speaker 2: portfolio was through the National Australia Bank, all three dollars
Speaker 2: of it.
Speaker 1: Yes, and and.
Speaker 2: And some like they make money off the debt and
Speaker 2: and a credit card that had two thousand dollars dead
Speaker 2: on it.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you talk to me about that you've got
Speaker 1: You've got a savings account and a credit account and
Speaker 1: a joint account. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And and basically the joint account is you've got
Speaker 2: to transfer on the internet, so internet banking. That account
Speaker 2: was with another.
Speaker 1: Bank, so you can't take money out of it.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, no, like that's like, you know, both got
Speaker 2: a sign for it.
Speaker 1: Ye. So what you've got really on you is an
Speaker 1: ATM card as a savings account and a credit card,
Speaker 1: both with a NAB linked to one another.
Speaker 2: So you could put your card in an ATM and
Speaker 2: you know, you could transfer between those two accounts. So
Speaker 2: when I couldn't get a balance on my account, that's
Speaker 2: what that's in fact what I did. So I put
Speaker 2: the card back in and put my PIN number in
Speaker 2: and then selected transfer. I was like, well, I'll just
Speaker 2: transfer some money from my credit card to my savings account.
Speaker 2: Now I thought I didn't think they'd be much in
Speaker 2: the credit card, but I thought they might be two
Speaker 2: hundred bucks in the credit card, So I transfer. I
Speaker 2: transferred two hundred from my credit card to my savings
Speaker 2: account and it just said is actually canceled and spat
Speaker 2: the card back out. So I was like, okay, that's weird,
Speaker 2: So put the card back in, put the pin back in. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 2: I'm a baler. I gonna keep going and keep trying.
Speaker 2: So I needed to buy Marke a beer, so thought
Speaker 2: I'll get two hundred out of the same ascount see
Speaker 2: if that transaction, like truy to see if the transfer worked.
Speaker 2: So anyway, the money comes out, so I'm like, oh, okay,
Speaker 2: it must have worked. So the eighteen isn't really telling
Speaker 2: me anything, but it's still doing sort of what I
Speaker 2: wanted to do. And so I'd take you two hundred
Speaker 2: dollars and just just go back to the bar and
Speaker 2: you know, just continue having to dreat with Mark. We
Speaker 2: could really put them on. So I've probably had probably
Speaker 2: three points in forty minutes. So then it's probably like, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's probably you know, ten two, maybe ten to one,
Speaker 2: five to one, something like that. I'm we're leaving, say
Speaker 2: goodbye to Mark. He goes, it starts to rain.
Speaker 1: You still probably got one hundred and fifty bucks in
Speaker 1: your pocket.
Speaker 2: Yeah, probably probably one hundred and forty or something. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know you didn't count the jukebox jack. Sorry, it's
Speaker 2: in the rain. I've got to walk home, which is
Speaker 2: maybe one one point two one point three ks, and
Speaker 2: so I'm like, maybe I'll just stop. I'm just stopping
Speaker 2: the l chive the ATM and I was thinking about it.
Speaker 2: I was just thinking that was it's weird. I certainly
Speaker 2: didn't need more money at that point, Like nothing was
Speaker 2: open and I couldn't have gone anywhere. I wasn't standing
Speaker 2: at the front of a casino somewhere going, oh, you know,
Speaker 2: how am I going to get a bit of extra
Speaker 2: coin here? So, out of pure curiosity and probably a
Speaker 2: bit of it, I'm just gone, maybe it's probably card
Speaker 2: back in, see what happens to you. So I put
Speaker 2: it back in and I still couldn't get a balance,
Speaker 2: and I say it the can. So I was like,
Speaker 2: I'm going to transfer from a credit card to my
Speaker 2: savings another two So I did that same thing at
Speaker 2: the transaction cancer and the card came out and I
Speaker 2: was like, Okay, well, if history has anything to say
Speaker 2: about this, we should be able to get the two
Speaker 2: hundred out of the savings account.
Speaker 1: So I did.
Speaker 2: So then I did four hundred.
Speaker 1: Then I did six hundred, all in the same night,
Speaker 1: all the.
Speaker 2: Same night, and then I did another eight hundred or
Speaker 2: something enough to drag it up to two. Because I
Speaker 2: had a credit card and I had a Save music card,
Speaker 2: so I could get one thousand dollars on each card.
Speaker 2: I could get a thousand dollars on the savings card,
Speaker 2: and then I got a thousand on the credit card,
Speaker 2: which was linked to the savings account. So I just
Speaker 2: put the credit card in press savings account and get
Speaker 2: the thousand out of there. So I had, Yeah, I
Speaker 2: had about you know, nineteen forty nine and forty bucks
Speaker 2: or something like that in my hands, and the rain stopped.
Speaker 2: I was like, well, perfect, great started down the road
Speaker 2: and I put the money in my wallet, and yeah,
Speaker 2: I just went went home, went to bed, and I
Speaker 2: remember distinctly waking up in the morning and I was like, oh,
Speaker 2: hell of a dream. That was a weird dream. To
Speaker 2: add all that stuff happened, and I even thought the
Speaker 2: part the first bit was probably a dream, like with
Speaker 2: the first two hundred. And then I went back and
Speaker 2: then I knelt sort of looked to the side, and
Speaker 2: on the right hand side of me. It was the
Speaker 2: bedside table and a wallet full of cash, and I
Speaker 2: was like, wow, that really did happen. Okay, I sort
Speaker 2: of thought, well, you know, my accounts will just be
Speaker 2: overdrawn now and I'll owe the money to the bank
Speaker 2: and you know that'll be it. And you know, it's
Speaker 2: just sort of a one off. So there's a couple
Speaker 2: of things, a couple of things you know, sort of
Speaker 2: could deal with a bit of cash for. So I
Speaker 2: think one was like a you know, like a new
Speaker 2: fridge free with fridge was on the blink.
Speaker 1: So do you tell the girlfriend that you're all cashed
Speaker 1: up that way?
Speaker 2: I mean I didn't feel cashed up anyway, Like I
Speaker 2: think we went out when I went out for dinner
Speaker 2: or something as well, and yeah, just I just did
Speaker 2: a few sort of yeah, a few sort of you know, sort.
Speaker 1: Of niggling things, you know, normal things, normal stuff.
Speaker 2: And I was like, you know what, I can just
Speaker 2: pay back that money. You know later on it'll be
Speaker 2: it'll be fine.
Speaker 1: So your credit card was showing that you're in debt.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I didn't know that yet though, Okay, like
Speaker 2: I didn't I didn't check the bank straight.
Speaker 1: Away next time on the glitch.
Speaker 2: I started standing on one leg a lot, which which
Speaker 2: is means checking your buffs. I started checking my balance
Speaker 2: flat out, and they snowballed into this bit of a
Speaker 2: punting and sort of trying to win the money back,
Speaker 2: trying to win more money. I was losing. I was
Speaker 2: losing a lot of hopelessness, Like I was like, I'm
Speaker 2: going to like I'm going to keep digging myself a
Speaker 2: whole here if I keep doing it. I was punting
Speaker 2: like a madman, like I was trying to win back.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I was down about forty grand I was
Speaker 2: trying to win it back. But anyway, small town things
Speaker 2: are just travels fast. So she yeah, she sends to
Speaker 2: your text the same pretty much the same day, just
Speaker 2: out of the blue. I'm not sure what you're into,
Speaker 2: but I want no part of it. And that's it
Speaker 2: for us,