It's enough to make a person quit smoking NH man charged 23 quadrillion dollars for smokes 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.
That's the merchants fault (gas station). He should have went there first and asked them to correct it before calling his bank/visa.
From the CNN article about the same: He noticed that his debt exceeded the world GDP while making a routine balance inquiry on his online Bank of America account. According to his statement, he had spent the profound sum in one pop at a nearby Mobil gas station -- his regular stop for Camel cigarettes. [...] Muszynski wondered aloud what he might possibly have asked to purchase for such an astronomical price. "Can I buy Europe on pump 4?"
Apparently it was VISA's fault, and it happened to several people (using several different banks), around 13,000, according to VISA. (And the article says he went back to the gas station first).
Yeah, I saw this on CNBC I think yesterday and VISA said it was a glitch with debit cards on their end. Hilarious, though.
You would think there could only be so many digits allowed in the system. I guess visa was trying out real world results in preparation for hyperinflation.
It takes 2 hours for Bank of America to figure out how to refund a bogus charge? That's crappy customer service. I ain't going there.
