JPMorgan Chase, the most important U.S. bank by assets, has filed lawsuits against customers who allegedly took advantage of a technical glitch to withdraw large amounts of funds from ATMs before the deposited checks bounced.

The lawsuits, which were filed in no less than three federal courts on October 28, are directed at individuals who allegedly withdrew essentially the most significant ones amounts under the so-called “infinite money bug,” a program that gained popularity on social media platforms similar to TikTok in late August.

The most notable case involves a Houston man who JPMorgan says owes $290,939.47 after an unidentified accomplice deposited a fraudulent check totaling $335,000 at an ATM.

“On August 29, 2024, a masked man deposited a check into Defendant Chase’s bank account in the amount of $335,000,” JPMorgan said within the Texas lawsuit. “After depositing the check, the defendant began withdrawing most of his ill-gotten funds.”

JPMorgan reportedly investigated hundreds of cases involving various sums within the wake of the virus glitch. While the bank didn’t disclose the full financial impact, its investigation highlighted the continuing challenge of check fraud, a world problem that caused $26.6 billion in losses last 12 months alone, in keeping with Nasdaq’s Global Financial Crime Report. While using paper checks has declined, JPMorgan’s “infinite financial glitch” episode shows how social media can increase vulnerabilities in financial institutions.

The glitch was reportedly fixed a number of days after it was discovered, allowing customers to bypass the standard waiting period that banks impose for checks to clear. Under normal circumstances, only a portion of the check value is on the market for immediate withdrawal, with the rest available only after the check clears, which can take several days.

In addition to the Texas case, JPMorgan has filed additional lawsuits in Miami and California involving clients accused of paying out amounts starting from $80,000 to $141,000. Most of the cases involve smaller sums, in keeping with people accustomed to the bank’s internal investigation, although JPMorgan prioritized cases with larger amounts and those who could have ties to organized crime groups.

Court documents show that JPMorgan’s security team contacted people suspected of committing fraud, asking for the return of fraudulent checks under the terms of the bank’s deposit agreement. The bank’s lawsuits seek refunds, interest, overdraft fees and, in some cases, punitive damages. The financial institution can be looking for damages for legal costs related to remediation.

These civil cases mark the start of a broader legal campaign by the bank against people it accuses of fraudulently obtaining funds through the ATM loophole. In addition to the civil cases, JPMorgan is reportedly turning over cases to law enforcement agencies across the country, paving the best way for potential criminal charges. According to sources accustomed to the bank’s approach, this strategy signals that JPMorgan will actively pursue criminals, specializing in cases indicating possible links to organized fraud groups.

“Fraud is a crime that impacts everyone and undermines confidence in the banking system,” Drew Pusateri, a spokesman for JPMorgan, said in an announcement to CNBC. “We are investigating these matters and actively working with law enforcement to ensure that if anyone commits fraud against Chase and its customers, they are held accountable.”

The lawsuits reflect JPMorgan’s commitment to recuperate funds lost to ATM fraud and function a warning to discourage similar schemes. The bank’s proactive stance also reflects growing awareness of how social media can facilitate the rapid exploitation of monetary vulnerabilities, highlighting the evolving bank security landscape.

How as we have previously reported, older Americans proceed to be lively in the workforce, working longer hours than in previous years because many of them cannot afford to retire.

According to , Nationwide, 22% of retirement-age staff are still employed; nonetheless, the number of self-employed people is 25%.

There are, of course, states where the number of retirement-age staff far exceeds this average.

In New Jersey, 33.8% of the workforce are retiree-age staff, followed by North Dakota (32.8%), Maryland (31.2%), New Hampshire (30.9%), and Connecticut (30.3%). . According to the Federal Reserve, only 51% of American adults aged 65 to 74 had a retirement account.

For adults 75 and older, that number drops to 42%.

According to , for black adults of retirement age, these numbers are lower.

According to , 67% of single black retirees have incomes below the senior ratea University of Massachusetts Boston dataset that measures whether older adults can afford basic living expenses. For white Americans, nonetheless, this figure drops to 50%.

According to Kilolo Kijakazi, a fellow at the Urban Institute who focuses on income, wealth and race, the disparities are related to racism in the labor market that dates back to the enslavement of black people.

“We have a history of discrimination in hiring, pay, promotions and benefits. Hiring discrimination also contributes to occupational segregation. “White people trafficked people of African descent to create wealth for whites, but black people did not benefit from the wealth of their labor,” Kijakazi said.

Kijakazi concluded: “After emancipation, we had laws and regulations designed to maintain this effect and even deprive blacks of the riches they had been able to create for themselves in the face of such adversity.”

As Darrick Hamilton, an economist and executive director of the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at Ohio State University, told the Times, white Americans have a bonus in wealth creation, putting blacks behind the each day eight ball.

“For most Americans, wealth tends to be created by wealth begetting more wealth,” Hamilton said. “Having access to an endowment that invests in assets that will passively appreciate in value over your lifetime is how most Americans generate wealth.”

Social Security, the entitlement program that pays retirement advantages, actually encourages people to work longer. However, most black staff work in industries that make it difficult for them to work until they reach maturity receive a full pension at the age of 70.

Social Security Works, a progressive organization looking for to reform Social Security to work for the modern employee, has proposed a straightforward change that they imagine will profit Black people and other staff of color after they retire.

Under their proposals, staff who turn 62 will receive 85% of their full retirement profit, which is predicted to extend to 100% after they reach full retirement age of 70.

According to A A 2023 joint study from the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College and the Urban Institutemaking the U.S. government’s retirement advantages formula more favorable to low-income staff would profit black staff, but not as much as simply paying them more for his or her work.

According to the study: “Although many of the benefit adjustments we modeled would disproportionately help Black and Latino beneficiaries and reduce Social Security benefit gaps, none of them would eliminate these disparities.”

The study concluded that: “Achieving equity in Social Security advantages for black and Latino adults would require significant progress toward equity in labor market outcomes. Although mortality and marriage also affect Social Security advantages by determining how long people will collect advantages and whether they are going to have access to spousal and survivor advantages, the primary factor influencing profit amounts is lifetime earnings. This puts black and Latino staff at a drawback because they are paid lower hourly wages and work fewer years on average than white staff. “Our recent analysis of the structural factors responsible for Social Security benefit shortfalls for Black adults found that improving Black workers’ lifetime earnings has the greatest potential to improve their retirement security.”

The press release of the associations Emmaüs France, Emmaüs International and the Abbé Pierre Foundation on July 17, 2024 caused shock amongst the public. It was announced that an independent report had been published by the Egaé group, an organization specializing in gender equality, workplace discrimination and violence. Investigation revealed the dark side of the man who had long been considered “France’s most beloved figure.”

Henry Grouès (1912-2007), higher generally known as Abbé Pierre and founder of Emmaüs – a world charity founded in France in 1949 – he allegedly sexually assaulted multiple women from the Fifties to the 2000s. These findings have had a profound impact on the constellation of groups related to Father Pierre and Emmaüs, revealing the challenges a corporation faces in leveraging a historical figure as a symbolic and strategic resource while concurrently attempting to distance itself from such a figure.

Abbé Pierre: A key symbolic resource

In 2018 we published article about how organizations use history as a strategic resource, specializing in the case of Emmaüs, which from the very starting has been closely linked to the personality of Abbé Pierre. The life of this priest, the history of the founding of Emmaüs, and the various symbolic elements related to Father Pierre’s image, equivalent to his clothing and public persona, supported the organization even after his death. Until early September, the logo and name of the Abbé Pierre Foundation, the fundamental part of Emmaüs, demonstrated this connection.

Strategic historical resources are each assets of organizational legitimacy and a battleground for power. Unlike tangible or financial assets, they’re shaped by each internal and external aspects, making it difficult for a corporation to totally control them. The public and legendary elements of historic resources make it difficult to denationalise or monopolize: Abbé Pierre essentially belongs to everyone.

Building and controlling narratives based on historical resources

Based on these observations, we provide insights into the strategic use of historic resources. Our model considers 4 dimensions to handle the challenges of strategic historic resources: appropriation, ownership, retention, and distancing.

Appropriation involves organizing scattered elements to create a coherent, easy historical narrative. For Emmaüs, this includes frequent use Abbé Pierre’s 1954 winter appeal and its image to strengthen the organization’s identity and mission. Emmaüs also faced challenges in controlling the use of Abbé Pierre’s image, well known in France as a public good. The organization needed to implement mechanisms equivalent to mental property rights to guard this resource. Conservation means preserving, enhancing and transmitting over time the characteristics and values ​​related to a historic resource. For Emmaüs, this meant maintaining the values ​​promoted by Abbé Pierre, even after his death, as a way to strengthen internal cohesion. Finally, distancing is about knowing when to maneuver away from a historical resource to avoid idolatry and organizational rigidity (and, on this case, accountability). In the past, Emmaüs needed to distance itself from Abbé Pierre to permit for organizational evolution while still recognizing his historical contributions.

Moving away from a historic resource

In the context of our archival evaluation, we now have already observed that since the Fifties, the organization or some of its stakeholders have made several attempts to distance themselves from the historical resource represented by Abbé Pierre. Although we now have not identified the sexual assault allegations mentioned in the Egaé report, several sources have indicated that Abbé Pierre can have did not keep the vows of chastity associated together with his ecclesiastical status as early as the Fifties. The challenge of distancing itself from Abbé Pierre for the Emmaüs constellation was not merely a matter of repute, as this organization, non-religious and financially independent, was relatively detached from the Catholic Church and its hierarchy.

Rather, the fundamental problem was controlling a person who was proof against managing structures and following rules. Moreover, during the Nineteen Nineties, Abbé Pierre created problems for Emmaüs by collaborating with the revisionist historian Roger Garaudy and by publicly collaborating with “rival” associations equivalent to the Droit au logement whose methods, if not goals, were diametrically against those of Emmaüs. In the summer of 2024, the model we proposed seems to have come to fruition and even intensified as the Abbé Pierre Foundation begins to distance itself from the image of Abbé Pierre. This distance has recently been dramatically increased following latest revelations made available by this organization in early September 2024.

Different distancing strategies

By analyzing 43 articles published in the French press between April and August 2024, we can outline the most significant messages of Emmaüs and the foundations advised by the crisis communications company. These messages, evident in statements from current and former leaders, can be summarized in six distancing levers:

From distancing to a whole break

These points reflect a communication strategy aimed toward preserving the integrity of the Emmaüs movement while meeting the demands for justice and recognition of the victims. The distance from his historical resource is evident, but Abbé Pierre stays an important historical reference. However, in early September 2024, the situation escalated with the publication of additional, much more serious testimony.

The Egaé Reportpublished on September 4, documents several cases of sexual assault, including one involving a vulnerable person and one other involving a toddler, in addition to rape cases.

Following these latest reports, the Abbé Pierre Foundation announced a series of actions, planning to completely abandon the image of Abbé Pierre in its activities and communications. Three organizations have taken radical steps to distance themselves from their historical resources by reviewing their memory policies. The Abbé Pierre Foundation will change its name, Emmaüs France is considering removing the words “Founder Abbé Pierre” from its logo, and the memorial/museum dedicated to Abbé Pierre will remain permanently closed.

Perhaps more revelations will come to light, as quite a few “historical cleansings” have already been announced. Even as the organization struggles to survive, distancing itself from its founder, it must depend on the values ​​that bind its community of volunteers, employees and donors to assist them survive what can be described as “organizational mourning.”