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$23 Quadrillion Charged on Visa Statements

Posted: Thu Jul 16, 2009 9:39 am
by Porkinator
Talk about ouch! CNN is reporting that a technical glitch with Visa charged a whopping $23,148,855,308,184,500.000 to many cardholders. Although CNN did not specify how many pairs of shorts were ruined in the process, the site did point out that the total (per charge) is about 2,007 times the size of the national debit-BO.*


One customer charged with the erroneous bill said that he was even charged an additional $15 overdraft fee. The 17-digit sum, according to 22-year-old Josh Muszynski of Manchester, New York, was apparently charged at a nearby Mobile gas station; this was the same place he usually bought a pack of Camel cigarettes.

After investigating the charge with both the gas station and Bank of America, the financial institution that issued the card, the latter company removed the $23 quadrillion charge from his account. Visa formally announced that he was one of less than 13,000 individuals that experienced a "temporary programming error at Visa Debit Processing Services which caused some transactions to be inaccurately posted to a small number of Visa prepaid accounts."

Visa added that the problem was fixed, and that all erroneous charges stemming from the problem have been voided.

*Before Obama