From 6,000 free donuts to $105B in ghost shares: history's fat finger errors
aakashgupta · x · 2026-09-20
An Ohio Dunkin' made 6,000 donuts this week after a customer accidentally typed two extra zeros into an online order (they wanted 60). The author uses this to trace famous "fat finger errors":
- Samsung Securities, 2018: an employee meant to pay a $0.94/share dividend to 2,000 employees but typed "shares" instead of "won" — the system deposited 2.8 billion ghost shares worth $105B, over 30x the actual stock. Sixteen employees sold $187M before trading was blocked 37 minutes later; Korea's $595B national pension fund cut ties with the brokerage.
- Tokyo, 2014: a broker put a trade's value into the quantity field, placing $617B of orders in a single morning.
The donut version is the cheapest fat finger error on record.
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