Man Charged $23 Quadrillion for Cigarettes

[adamparkzer]

I read in the news earlier that a man named Josh Muszynski was charged $23,148,855,308,184,500 (that's over $23 quadrillion) after he purchased a pack of cigarettes at the local gas station with his debit card.

When he was interviewed by WMUR-TV, Muszynski said, "I thought my card had been compromised. I thought somebody had bought Europe with my credit card. It was very concerning."

(The original article by WMUR/CBS can be found here.)

 

[zen-r]

Europe's not worth that much.

You can have us for £20, & we'll throw in a free wine glass.

 

[HrvckRacer29]

Seen that on my internet homepage. It apparently happened to several people with prepaid credit cards. They say it's fixed now.

 

[taha116]

Wo.. any links to news articles on this lol, halarios

 

[adamparkzer]

Seen that on my internet homepage. It apparently happened to several people with prepaid credit cards. They say it's fixed now.

Interesting, I was unaware that more than one person fell victim to this.

Wo.. any links to news articles on this lol, halarios

The original source where I found my information is cited in the first post.

 

[tridge]

haha, awesome. Shared that with some co-workers.

 

[ichwar]

Lol, I like the way he phrased his reply "I thought someone had bought Euerope"!

 

[turtle1911]

I read in the news earlier that a man named Josh Muszynski was charged $23,148,855,308,184,500 (that's over $23 quadrillion) after he purchased a pack of cigarettes at the local gas station with his debit card.

When he was interviewed by WMUR-TV, Muszynski said, "I thought my card had been compromised. I thought somebody had bought Europe with my credit card. It was very concerning."

(The original article by WMUR/CBS can be found here.)

Hilarious article.. thx for sharing !

 

[zapzack]

Thats unbelievable.. I tweeted this.. lol

 

[Smith6612]

Wow lol. That's a great way to keep someone from smoking!

 

[mattura]

I loved that story!

The best bit was where it said "The bank fixed the error and waived the $9 overdraft fee"...!!!

So you only get charged $9 for going 23 quadrillion overdrawn?!

 

[ichwar]

Lol, I missed that!
But I think that the 23 quadrillion would never have gotten through in the first place.

 

[azntechguy]

$23 Quadrillion? Hmm, there were several large countries I wanted to buy...

I loved that story!

The best bit was where it said "The bank fixed the error and waived the $9 overdraft fee"...!!!

So you only get charged $9 for going 23 quadrillion overdrawn?!

Depending on where the news was sourced from (because it seems like this error affected those using Visa debit products - e.g.: Visa Buxx), there was a lot of variations of what the individuals purchased, where they purchased from and how much in overdraft fees they were assessed.

From what I see, it looks like those with Bank of America got assessed a $15 fee and Wachovia a $20 fee. $9 is rather competitive, eh? (As sad as it sounds)

 

[garrettroyce]

It's actually surprisingly common for this to happen. Google the exact number of the price of the cigarettes (23,148,855,308,184,500).

"Convert 2314885530818450000 to hexadecimal, and you end up with 20 20 20 20 20 20 12 50. Most C/C++ programmers see the error now ... hex 20 is a space. So spaces were stuffed into a field where binary zero should have been."

http://www.crazyontap.com/topic.php?TopicId=51103&Posts=9

 

[pinkeh]

Visa looks at the bank blankly. The bank blames Visa.

It's always the bank's fault. :biggrin:

 

[garrettroyce]

Visa looks at the bank blankly. The bank blames Visa.

It's always the bank's fault. :biggrin:

Visa looks at the bank, the bank looks at visa, then they both look at you :biggrin:

 

[zen-r]

Visa looks at the bank, the bank looks at visa, then they both look at you :biggrin:

Visa looks at the bank, the bank looks at visa, they both look at you, then we all look at garrettroyce. "Bloomin' computer programmers!"

 

[ichwar]

Visa looks at the bank, the bank looks at visa, they both look at you, then we all look at garrettroyce. "Bloomin' computer programmers!"

Visa looks at the bank, the bank looks at visa, they both look at you, then we all look at garrettroyce, garrettroyce deflects their gaze onto zen-r. "That guy must of mis-wired something." :biggrin: