Man Charged 23 Quadrillion Bucks For Pack Of Cigarettes

[meegbear]

Source: HuffingtonPost.com / AP

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 (Moo-SIN'-ski) 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.

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/15/man-charged-23-quadrillio_n_233286.html

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:wow:

[Forkboy]

1. So he saved a few bucks then?

[Mari333]

21. LOL

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

38. The carton price was only $200,000,000,000,000,000.00

Some people will never learn how to save.

[Hepburn]

2. Well, that would be one reason to stop smoking....

...:evilgrin:

[FSogol]

3. Man, those sin taxes will kill you. n/t

[bad_robbie]

29. But someone made a sin tax error! n/t

[GliderGuider]

30. Oh sweet Jesus that was bad...

[msanthrope]

45. The grammar police should be out in full force n/t

[mikita]

49. that was worth booting this to the top again! n/t

[imdjh]

4. Thanks to President Obama and the various states, it will be only a matter of time..

until that's the correct price.

Cheap cigs here are up to $3/pack from $1.49 one year ago.

[Divine Discontent]

8. sin tax should be higher. every day in my car without AC I have to have the windows rolled down

and the person in front of me 4 out of 5 times at one of the stoplights is smoking and it drifts right back into my car. I'd have 'em charge $100 a pack if I could. Those things are killers and they stink.

[imdjh]

10. I don't smoke in my car, never have.

But the bottom line is that you are sitting in a car breathing other people's exhaust, and they yours. Find something to whine about.

[Beavker]

22. Exhaust is on it's way out too.

Plus i'd say 90% of those cigarettes end up on the ground. I watch them do it.
Quit smoking.

[teknomanzer]

52. I ride a motorcylce and I'd like to bitch slap anyone...

who ever flicked a cigarette butt out of the car window - damn near fuckin' got me killed. If you think that is whining let see what you would do if you got hit in the throat with a burning cigarette as you're flying down the freeway. Second hand smoke be damned! I'm talking about instant death because some asshole can't use an ashtray!

[imdjh]

54. I'm thinking that that is one of those struck twice by lightning things.

I rode a motorcycle as primary transportation for about 7 years and never got hit by a cigarette. I still ride a motorcycle around town (city streets) and cigarettes have never been a problem. My major complaint is that since they stopped teaching Drivers Ed in high school, most people have never been taught that you are supposed to stop at the stop sign, right at the stop sign not where the two streets actually intersect. Not stopping properly at the top sign makes it appear as if the car is not going to stop at all and causes me considerable anxiety as well as causing me to brake a lot on a thoroughfare.

[Hello_Kitty]

16. I'd like to charge people fines for having bad breath and B.O.

The second-hand smoke thing has been taken to an extreme with some people where they belief that the slightest whiff of tobacco smoke is a horrific assault on them.

[Zhade]

42. Bad breath and B.O. don't give you cancer, so your analogy is quite flawed.

NT!

[Hello_Kitty]

53. Your belief that you will get cancer from an errant whiff of smoke is quite flawed. eom

[WriteDown]

17. And you're worried more about the cigarette?

Than the car exhaust fumes? Some of which you can't even smell.

[mitchum]

40. And I assume your car is just coasting without the engine running?

[mike_c]

9. I think my GF pays about $5.50 a pack....

California.

[imdjh]

11. And as we speak, van loads of untaxed cigarettes are making their felonious way to California.

And our prisons contain the drivers of previous waves of cigarette smugglers- oh the evil on the hoof.

[christx30]

14. You raise the taxes on cigarettes

and this will happen more and more. People aren't just going to roll over and pay whatever the government says they should.

[Starbucks Anarchist]

27. What are you complaining about?

It's $10/pack in NYC.

[Redneck Socialist]

5. On the plus side, my state now has a huge budget surplus. n/t

[Divine Discontent]

6. WHOOPS! BoA accidentally showed us all how much money they really own!

But seriously, did they do this to cover something up for a day or two? Ya never know. Otherwise, that's funny... with cigs going up and all.

[Glenda]

48. HA!

[Spinzonner]

7. I think it was very gracious of the bank

to only charge him a $15 overdraft on that.

[imdjh]

13. Yeah, seriously. Wachovia would charge me $30

[corkhead]

12. I'll bet the barcode got read while the computer cursor was in the price field

on their point of sale cash register system. I have had the same thing happen on my Quickbooks POS system, but I "usually" catch it before I run the card.:evilgrin:

[xchrom]

15. AND a $15 over draft --

:eyes: and here i didn't think you could take out much than a grand a day on debit.

[ret5hd]

18. If he can afford THAT much for cigarettes, he should pay off our national debt!!!

[Uben]

19. They cost a quintillion here.....

......he got a deal!

[JayMusgrove]

37. NH has cheaper cigarettes than many states. LOL

[Joe Chi Minh]

20. How else do you think the directors of the cigarette company are going to get their bonuses paid?

[D23MIURG23]

23. Im not a fan of smoking, but...

this makes me think tax hikes have gone a bit far.

[damntexdem]

24. Well, that could have helped him stop smoking.

;-)

[myrna minx]

25. Leave it to BOA to charge the overdraft fee.

:rofl:

[Prospero1]

26. amusing but scary.

It raises the serious question about exactly what sort of "accounting" is taking place within the credit card and bank systems. As a software developer, I have some first hand experience with such systems and I have seen a lot of defective programs that handle accounting and billing. How many of us have had to fight over glaring errors on our bills or statements only to be told "it was a computer error". These systems are the company's "books" and they are in many cases broken. In this case I would expect the bank (and VISA) to have identified an obvious error and contacted the customer rather than the other way around.

[KansDem]

28. Is BOA using old Diebold machines still programmed to "count" GOP votes?

Just asking...

[smirkymonkey]

36. Hmmmm.....

You may be on to something.

[KamaAina]

31. And here I was thinking it was gonna be in Zimbabwe

[Q3JR4]

32. And he ain't the only one...

http://www.firstcoastnews.com/news/spotlight/news-article.aspx?storyid=141665&catid=142
http://consumerist.com/5314246/unruly-teen-charges-23-quadrillion-at-drugstore

Visa, it seems, had issues. And in at least one case the overdraft fee associated with the charge is sitting around in someone's account until they "figure out what's going on."


Q3JR4.

[progressoid]

33. Is that more than a Brazillion?

:shrug:

[Vidar]

34. "You don't want to wind up like the Hinton Family--with

10,000 cans of lizard meat when all they ordered was an all purpose scraper." In Today's example reality surpasses the Firesign skit.

[onehandle]

35. I fully endorse this new pricing. nt

[mitchum]

39. They are only 20 quadrillion bucks in NC

[ieoeja]

41. I hope he gets to keep the points!

[sfwriter]

43. Let's all thank Josh Muszynski for paying off the national debt...

...providing us with equitable health care and sending our brave astronauts to Mars.

:-)

[scheming daemons]

44. Yeah... but think of the reward points he got! He can take a free cruise per week for life!

[Turbineguy]

46. They're just getting us ready

for the national debt if the repubs get back in.

[BR_Parkway]

47. Wow, they are trying to pay for health care reform all in one swipe!

[Duer 157099]

50. Is that his credit card number?

If so, nice that he published it

[sarcasmo]

51. Visa, passed the buck to BofA and BofA passes the buck to Visa. Is anyone ever at fault in this

Country?

[armodem08]

55. And BOA kept him on hold for two hours!?!

What the fuck kind of business are they running if they keep a guy on hold for a mistaken 23 QUADRILLION dollar charge?

Yeah, there's a SMALL chance he really bought that many cigs... :sarcasm:


These guys are like the Mafia, but they say please and wear suits!

[skip fox]

56. That's gotta be over 500 trillion a toke!!!!

Bet he got a good nicotine buzz!