Man Charged $23 Quadrillion For Cigarettes

[Ginny]

http://www.wtov9.com/money/20058842/...11000107152009

Man Charged $23 Quadrillion For Cigarettes
Mysterious Bank Debit Leaves Josh Muszynski Bewildered
Posted: 6:59 am EDT July 15, 2009

MANCHESTER, N.H. -- When Josh Muszynski checked his bank account online, he didn't expect to find a $23 quadrillion debit.

"If it were to be true that someone actually compromised that money and got that money, they could do some severe damage with that amount of money," he said.

Muszynski expected to see a couple hundred dollars in his account, but a 17-digit number that rivals even the national debt confronted him instead. The mistake alarmed Muszynski, who has downsized to an apartment in efforts to save money to buy a house.

"I thought my card had been compromised. I thought somebody had bought Europe with my credit card," Muszynski said. "It was very concerning."

What Did He Buy?
Muszynski swiped his debit card at a local Mobil gas station to buy a pack of cigarettes for a few bucks, Instead, his Bank of America account indicated he spent $23,148,855,308,184,500 at the gas station -- an amount for which he probably could have bought the entire company.

Muszynski may never know what went wrong. He also wondered what he would've done if he actually had money like that to spend.

If he had $23 quadrillion, Muszynski said he would give it all away, and maybe also bail out General Motors a few more times.

No One Could Answer Mysterious Charge
Hours later, after checking his account, Muszynski rushed back to the store but it appeared no one knew what to tell him. He wondered whether to call a debt relief company or how he'd pay it all off.

"The cashier says she couldn't help me at all. She didn't know anything about it," Muszynski said. "It's a lot of money in the negative, something I could never ever afford to pay back -- my children couldn't afford, grandchildren, nothing like that."

Muszynski called the bank about the string of numbers on the screen and a $15 overdraft fee the bank tacked on to his mysterious debt. After two hours on the phone, Muszynski said, the representative on the line had no idea what to say.

"She just tried to assure me that everything would be fixed, and I couldn't see something like that being fixed," Muszynski said.

Nearly 24 hours after the hole formed in his bank account, Muszynski checked his statement again. The bank corrected his statement a day later.

"It was back to normal. They reversed the negative balance fee, which was nice," Muszynski said.

WMUR News 9 in New Hampshire contacted Bank of America about the statement mishap, but representatives said the card issuer, Visa, could only answer questions. Visa, in turn, recommended that WMUR News 9 contact the bank.

Oh my.

[Brodie]

Thats a few miles away from here. **** Mobil, aparently.

[Evenstar227]

Hours later, after checking his account, Muszynski rushed back to the store but it appeared no one knew what to tell him. He wondered whether to call a debt relief company or how he'd pay it all off.

Wow. I should send this guy a bill if he's cool with paying off mysterious amounts of debt that aren't his fault. I could use the money.

[Ninjinister]

He's not the only one.

[XERO]

See, that's why I don't smoke. Not only it kills you, it kills your account security, too.

[Sewer Bull]

Originally Posted by Benvenuto

See, that's why I don't smoke. Not only it kills you, it kills your account security, too.

I don't think that the cigarettes were particularly to be blamed here.

[XERO]

Originally Posted by Mino

I don't think that the cigarettes were particularly to be blamed here.

Yeah, I know. I just don't like 'em, that's all. This just gave me another reason, albeit an unnatural one.

[Roland]

Hey isn't it an asci/unicode string? Also it can be a double ( 64 bit number) overflow.

[Candy Kappa]

but it was the best cigarettes he ever had

[Machias Banshee]

Heh, must be our new cigarette tax that they kicked in for the state budget...

Figures, something crazy like this would happen in NH. Manchester's an hour at Most from here...

[Spitfire]

Glad I have a Mastercard.