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Posted on: July 15, 2009 4:23 PM, by Razib Khan

Too big a bill:

Josh Muszynski, 22, of Manchester, New Hampshire, was one Visa customer aghast to find the 17-digit charge on his bill. Adding insult to injury, he had also been hit with a $15 overdraft fee.

He noticed that his debt exceeded the world GDP while making a routine balance inquiry on his online Bank of America account. According to his statement, he had spent the profound sum in one pop at a nearby Mobil gas station -- his regular stop for Camel cigarettes.

"Very, very panicked," he jumped in his car and sped to the station.

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Comments

That cigarette tax is getting out of control.

Posted by: JohnV | July 15, 2009 4:53 PM

At 39% interest, no less!

Posted by: Roadtripper | July 15, 2009 6:11 PM

What happened here isn't hard to figure out when one looks at the number. 2314885530818450000 when converted into hexadecimal is a string of 20s. 20 is the blank space. So somewhere spaces went where zeros should have been and something that should have checked for the variable type or something similar didn't occur.

Posted by: Joshua Zelinsky | July 15, 2009 6:46 PM

A local news person reported that the 15-bux-charge was eliminated. Dunno how reliable the source, however....

Posted by: Don in Rochester MN | July 15, 2009 9:58 PM

Josh Muszynski, 22, of Manchester, New Hampshire, was one Visa customer aghast to find the 17-digit charge on his bill.

You mean there were some who weren't aghast?

Posted by: The Ridger | July 15, 2009 10:10 PM

Read about this NH story and saw a story on the same page saying someone in Texas received that exact charge on a dining bill. I looked it up and found over the last few days that several people around the US using VISA debit cards have had that charge. I have to wonder if it was an incorrect translation of some specific $ amount when charged, and a hexadecimal thing Joshua Zelinsky mentions is a good candidate.

Posted by: ABradford | July 16, 2009 11:42 AM

Good call, Joshua. My first thought was to check the base 2 log to see if it was a byte overflow error of some kind, but no dice.

Posted by: Matt Springer | July 17, 2009 3:28 PM

What if someone is traveling abroad (ie., Jamaica) and fuels a car at a gas station for about $30 (2400 Jamaican dollars)? The person puts it on his credit card and signs for 2400 Jamaican dollars. However, when the cc bill comes it shows $2400. The person does not have copy of the receipt. What do you advise to do? Thanks.

Posted by: David | July 27, 2009 1:29 PM