Sam Curry received a massive payment due to an error.

Sam Curry works as a blogger and security engineer for a variety of tech companies, including one of the largest, Google. Part of Curry’s work as a security tech is hunting bug bounties, seeking out vulnerabilities in company systems and reporting them for payment. Curry does some of this work for Google, but his relationship with the company doesn’t progress beyond that. This is why he was so surprised to receive a sudden payment of $250,000 from them.

Last Wednesday, Curry posted a screenshot to his personal Twitter with a screenshot revealing the payment. According to Curry, by the time he had posted that screenshot, he had already been in possession of the money for nearly a month, while Google had not responded to his help ticket.

“It’s been a little over 3 weeks since Google randomly sent me $249,999 and I still haven’t heard anything on the support ticket. Is there any way we could get in touch @Google?” he wrote. “It’s OK if you don’t want it back…”

It's been a little over 3 weeks since Google randomly sent me $249,999 and I still haven't heard anything on the support ticket. Is there any way we could get in touch @Google?

(it's OK if you don't want it back…) pic.twitter.com/t6f7v5erli

— Sam Curry (@samwcyo) September 14, 2022

Following that post (and likely because of it), Google finally got in contact with Curry, and has begun the process to reclaim the money. Curry has made a point of not spending any of the money, as he knew Google would want it back, though Google has advised him to move it to a different bank account for tax purposes.

“Our team recently made a payment to the wrong party as the result of human error,” a Google spokesperson told NPR in a statement. “We appreciate that it was quickly communicated to us by the impacted partner, and we are working to correct it.”