Car dealer gets instant millions

The amount was bigger than any Megalotto jackpot, and laying claim to it was perhaps just as scary.

A car dealer in Quezon City withdrew P200 from an automated teller machine (ATM) under his one-year-old son’s savings account, and the transaction indicated that the money left was over a hundred million pesos.

Norberto Luisito "Chito" Amoranto, 31, said he got the scare of his life when the transaction receipt spewed out by the ATM indicated a current balance of P160,830,000 and an available balance of P260,830,000.

Amoranto’s toddler son had at most P2,000 at the PCI Equitable Bank branch in La Loma, Quezon City.

"I shook all over when I saw the transaction receipt," said Amoranto, recalling the unexpected windfall courtesy of the Philippine Bank of Communication (PBCom) on Quezon Avenue before noon Thursday. "I couldn’t believe what I saw."

Amoranto, who owns the Vital Prime company, used a PBCom ATM just across his office at Room 307, Casa Rafael Building. PCI Equitable and PBCom both belong to the Bancnet ATM network.

"My first instinct was to run back to the office and think about what I should do," he said. Trying his best to remain calm, Amoranto finally called up someone he knew at the bank branch where he opened his son’s savings account to report what happened.

When bank officials checked the baby’s account No. 0113072400035385, it registered the true available balance. They asked Amoranto to submit to the bank all the records of the puzzling transaction.

Chito said he called his wife Tina, 32, who works at Keppel Bank, to relay to her the news, to which she replied: "Are you pulling my leg?"

But he told The STAR that running away with all that money, or at least the transaction receipt, never entered his mind. "What if the money was really there and it came from some questionable source?"

In the first place, the available balance was higher than the current balance –something which just does not happen in normal bank transactions.

He also thought about checking if all that money was really there by making a fund transfer to his account, but he was advised against it.

But just to check he asked a staff at the office to make another withdrawal later in the afternoon, and the employee got the same results.

Yesterday, while he was being interviewed by phone at around 2 p.m., he offered to make another withdrawal at the same PBCom ATM. This time, he intended to withdraw the maximum allowable amount of P4,000.

The machine rejected the transaction, saying it was beyond the available balance.

When he opted to take out P200, there it was again on the receipt: a current balance of P160,830,000 and an available balance of P260,830,000.

He faxed to The STAR copies of the transaction receipts to prove the point.

"Remembering the Jose Velarde accounts, this one really gives me the creeps," he said. "Where did the money come from, if indeed it was there?"