A Quadrillion-Dollar Credit Card Bill

[Kane52630]

http://www.nbcdfw.com/around_town/shopping/Wow-Quadrillion-Dollar-Credit-Card-Bill.html?yhp=1

A North Texas man has a 17-figure credit card statement after a bank glitch resulted in an eye-popping charge.

Here’s how to say it: 23 quadrillion,148 trillion, 855 billion, 308 million, 184,000 and 500 dollars.

It's more than 2,000 times the national debt -- and, according to Jon Seale's online credit card statement, it’s what he spent July 13 at Five Sixty by Wolfgang Puck.

“For that amount of money, I could actually own Wolfgang Puck himself," Seale said.

Seale, a husband and father of five from Trophy Club, spent much of Tuesday making calls to Wachovia and Visa in hopes of getting the exorbitant charge removed from his Wachovia Visa Buxx credit card. Both companies told him they were working to resolve the issue.

“It's an inconvenience, but it's not like I was truly worried my money was gone," he said. "It’s an obvious, glaring error.”

Seale even tried tracking down the celebrity chef himself.

“I tried to find Wolfgang Puck on Facebook and add him as a friend to see if he’d make a comment, but I didn’t have any luck finding him," Seale said.

Visa said the technical glitch that resulted in the giant charge only affected some customers with prepaid Visa cards.

"A temporary programming error at Visa Debit Processing Services caused some transactions to be inaccurately posted to a small number of Visa prepaid accounts," said Visa spokeswoman Elvira Swanson said in a written statement. "The technical glitch has been corrected, and all erroneous postings have been removed.”

Steale was not the only Visa Buxx cardholder to see the huge charge on his statement. A New Hampshire man found the $23 quadrillion charge after buying a pack of cigarettes at a gas station. A Visa representative said affected customers will also have the $20 overdraft fees removed.

wow

 

[Wiseman]

big deal, I owe more then that on my credit report

 

[Kane52630]

here is a similar story, HURM
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090715/ap_on_fe_st/us_odd_quadrillion_dollar_debit

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.

 

[The Guard]

"For that amount of money, I could actually own Wolfgang Puck himself," Seale said.

Surely there was a better soundbyte than this...

 

[Sawyer]

This country makes me sad.

 

[Majic Walrus]

I heard this on NPR just a few minutes ago in my car! I think this is pretty awesome, at the very least they waived the overdraft fee that was charged.

 

[Wiseman]

I heard this on NPR just a few minutes ago in my car! I think this is pretty awesome, at the very least they waived the overdraft fee that was charged.

You were listening to NPR while in your car, thank god you made it home safely. You could've fallen asleep at any moment