Bank error in your favor: Google Pay error accidentally sends users free money

Here’s a good reason to use Google Pay: Google can send you tons of free money. Many users report that Google has accidentally put cash in their accounts – from 10 to 1000 dollars. Android researcher Mishaal Rahman ran into the bug and shared most of the relevant details on Twitter.

The money came through the Google Pay “reward”program. Just like with a credit card, you have to pay back a few dollars from time to time for various promotions, but nothing like that. Numerous screenshots show that users are receiving a bunch of “rewards” of money for what the post calls “Google Pay Remittance Experience Trial”. “Dogfooding”is a technical term for “internal beta testing of pre-release software”, so if a message like this was ever to go out, it should only have been sent to Google employees and/or some testing partners. Many regular users received multiple copies of this message with multiple payouts.

Users who received unexpected deposits later received an email from the Google Pay team detailing “an error that resulted in cash being inadvertently credited to your account.”The message begins: “You received this email because a cash credit was inadvertently credited to your Google Pay account. The issue has since been resolved and, where possible, the loan has been cancelled.”We assume that anyone who left money in their Google Pay account has withdrawn it, but for those who have spent or transferred money, Google adds: “If we were unable to cancel the credit, the money is yours. save. No further action is required.”

That’s right: if you spent or transferred money, they will remain with you! Google doesn’t want to waste its time (or presumably press coverage) chasing individual users.