Man pays 23 quadrillion dollars for pack of smokes.

Unintentionally, of course.

Quote :

MANCHESTER, N.H. – A New Hampshire man says he swiped his debit card at a gas station to buy a pack of cigarettes and was charged over 23 quadrillion dollars. Josh Muszynski checked his account online a few hours later and saw the 17-digit number — a stunning $23,148,855,308,184,500 (twenty-three quadrillion, one hundred forty-eight trillion, eight hundred fifty-five billion, three hundred eight million, one hundred eighty-four thousand, five hundred dollars).

Muszynski says he spent two hours on the phone with Bank of America trying to sort out the string of numbers and the $15 overdraft fee.

The bank corrected the error the next day.

Bank of America tells WMUR-TV only the card issuer, Visa, could answer questions. Visa, in turn, referred questions to the bank.

And no one notices that this guy has just been charged more money than their entire system holds?

Freezer wrote:

Unintentionally, of course.

Quote :

MANCHESTER, N.H. – A New Hampshire man says he swiped his debit card at a gas station to buy a pack of cigarettes and was charged over 23 quadrillion dollars. Josh Muszynski checked his account online a few hours later and saw the 17-digit number — a stunning $23,148,855,308,184,500 (twenty-three quadrillion, one hundred forty-eight trillion, eight hundred fifty-five billion, three hundred eight million, one hundred eighty-four thousand, five hundred dollars).

Muszynski says he spent two hours on the phone with Bank of America trying to sort out the string of numbers and the $15 overdraft fee.

The bank corrected the error the next day.

Bank of America tells WMUR-TV only the card issuer, Visa, could answer questions. Visa, in turn, referred questions to the bank.

And no one notices that this guy has just been charged more money than their entire system holds?

Or that he owed 2,315 times the national debt?

I knew smoking was an expensive habit, but wow.

Some people just gotta have em.

He's not the only one. This apparently happened to five or six different people using Visa debit cards.

My favorite was the gentleman who was charged the same amount for taking his wife to dinner at Wolfgang Puck's restaurant.

He remarked that if he had that sort of money, he could buy Wolfgang Puck AND his restaurant.

Aren't bank systems set up to automatically flag any transactions over X amount? IIRC, the Patriot Act requires them to. (Or is that only wire transactions)

Freezer wrote:

Aren't bank systems set up to automatically flag any transactions over X amount? IIRC, the Patriot Act requires them to. (Or is that only wire transactions)

According to the article I read, there was a glitch in the system that let it get by for those five or six cards. So it was basically a case of the system being there, but temporarily not working.

How does that even happen? Was it a problem with the bank? The card reader? Ridiculously high taxes on tobacco?

ZoZo wrote:

How does that even happen? Was it a problem with the bank? The card reader? Ridiculously high taxes on tobacco?

According to the article, the problem was with the bank.

Well, if that doesn't convince him to stop smoking, I don't know what will.
Seriously, it reminds me of a quote that was fairly common years ago...
"To err is human, but to really foul things up requires a computer."

the asylum wrote:

I knew smoking was an expensive habit, but wow.

Some people just gotta have em.

:smoke:

This is why you have to check your statements. Something like this happens, you need to get it taken care of right away, or it'll fuck up everything.
I hope he didn't have to pay overdraft fees for anything that came out of that account subsequent to the error. The bank should reimburse him, since it was their mistake.

The overdraft fees alone would be enough to bankrupt his family for several lifetimes, so I imagine not.

grmblfjx wrote:

The overdraft fees alone would be enough to bankrupt his family for several lifetimes, so I imagine not.

The overdraft fees on something like that would bankrupt most countries.

Freezer wrote:

grmblfjx wrote:

The overdraft fees alone would be enough to bankrupt his family for several lifetimes, so I imagine not.

The overdraft fees on something like that would bankrupt most countries.

Most countries all put together, even.

Every time I see this thread, I am struck by the thought that "quadrillion" sounds like a made-up number.

ZoZo wrote:

Every time I see this thread, I am struck by the thought that "quadrillion" sounds like a made-up number.

It really does. Like it should be up there with 'bazillion' and 'bajillion' and such.