A small typo made this man donate $15,000 instead of $150 — now everyone's calling him a hero

What began as a small act of generosity soon became a life-changing moment when a man accidentally donated $15,000 instead of $150 to a charity. He was terrified when he saw the money deducted from his bank account, and rushed to retrieve it. But before he could take any action, people began praising him as a hero.

Soon, the story of the man's bad fortune went viral on social media. On Reddit (u/lazybear90), he shared that the incident took place when he and his wife moved into a small apartment building in San Francisco, as reported by TODAY. One of their neighbors was a kind, 70-year-old retired veteran popularly called Joe. He was a White American and also a devoted Hindu priest—something you don’t hear every day. One afternoon, our Redditor ran into Joe in the hallway, and he got to know about a charity that the veteran helped run for a community in Bangladesh. So he asked Joe to send him the GoFundMe link.

He explained, “The next day at work, I go on the GoFundMe page and donate $150. Or so I thought. Moments later, I get a text on my phone warning me of an unusually large transaction on my credit card. I’m confused and swipe to open the text message. It says I have made a payment of $15,041 to GoFundMe.” He later realized that his credit card number started with 4 and 1. Somehow, while typing it in, his cursor had jumped to the donation box, and what was supposed to be a $150 donation turned into $15041.

The person revealed, “Needless to say, I couldn’t live with myself just donating $150 after seeing how the community responded to the $15,041. I decided the least I could do was to add a zero, and so I donated $1,500.” Netizens online understandably had a lot to say about the incident. A Reddit user, u/Global-Cattle-6285, commented, “That $1500 will go FAR in Bangladesh. You’ve helped a lot, and I’m guessing you now have a fairly close affinity with the charity. I hope you get the chance to go out and visit them in person to see how you’ve helped out. Kudos to you!”

Another person, u/Mardak5150, wrote, “I hope this thread gets the eyes of some secret internet millionaire philanthropist who makes the donation a reality. Unfortunately, I can't be that person.” In a similar vein, u/Arkase chimed, “God, just imagining you realising your error, trying to correct it, then getting those responses from the guys... wow.” Once his story went viral on social media platforms, something beautiful happened—people from across the world started donating to the cause, and the accidental $15,000 gift turned into an even bigger wave of support, as reported by GOOD.