Pack of smokes? That'll be $23 quadrillion please
Filed under: Banks, Credit, Debt, Shopping
Anyone who thinks smoking isn't a costly addiction should ask Josh Muszynski, who went to purchase a pack of smokes at a local gas station and wound up with a $23 quadrillion charge on his debit card -- and a $15 overdraft fee to boot. The 17-digit mistake didn't hit Muszynski until he checked his account balance online and found that he had gone so far in the red that he assumed someone had stolen his account information and, "bought Europe with my credit card."
After getting no help from the cashier at the gas station, Muszynski spent two hours on the phone with Bank of America but was still the world's most debt-ridden individual. Thankfully by the next day Bank of America had fixed the error and even refunded the $15 overdraft fee, returning Muszynski's accounts to normal.
Muszynski wasn't the only cardholder who found himself on the wrong end of a bank error. Another Visa cardholder reported that his teen age daughter also spent $23,148,855,308,184,500 during a stop at CVS on Monday which led to a suspended card and a $20 overdraft fee.
In a statement to CNN Visa explained that fewer than 13,000 transactions were affected, blaming the issue on a, "temporary programming error at Visa Debit Processing Services ... [which] caused some transactions to be inaccurately posted". Visa reports that all of the 23 Quadrillion dollar charges have been fixed and any overdraft fees refunded but just to be safe now; would be a good time to check your account balance.
This error only highlights the importance of checking your receipts and accounts regularly. If the bank can screw up this bad, how likely is it that a $14.25 purchase could become a $1,425 mistake, especially at retailers who require clerks to enter in credit and debit amounts manually?
Another way to stay on top of errors like this is to set up spending alerts so you know right away if a larger error happens.
If you can't set up mobile alerts for transactions over a certain amount at your bank, you should sign up for a personal finance service like Quicken Online that can send you large purchase and low balance notifications for free.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
7-15-2009 @ 5:26PM
Juanblue85 said...
Man that is an insane number I don't know I would take it I could have a panic attack or worse, but I am glad that the problem was resolved I am also using a Visa pre-paid card but luckily I wasn't affected by this. Thank goodness.
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7-15-2009 @ 5:33PM
Sharon said...
We can thank the wonderful world of technology for eliminating the "personal" banking position and putting our lives into the hands of a computer who really doesn't give a rats a** what type of charges are coming through on our account.
What type of system does BOA have anyway that a charge like that would not alert the bank to assess and personally contact the customer? Especially with the Identity Theft epidemic. And charge the insulting overdraft fee to boot?
Seriously
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7-15-2009 @ 10:32PM
CHguy1977 said...
It's all automated, Sharon. The system only recognized it as a purchase, and once it saw the account was overdrawn, another program went into effect and charged the fee. It's not like somone is sitting there at the computer getting a live feed of people's transactions and presses a key to assess the overdraft fee.
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7-15-2009 @ 10:32PM
Vince said...
Better question, how can a Bank afford to transfer assetts in excess of it's total holdings and NOONE catches it?
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7-15-2009 @ 10:32PM
marshall said...
Thats nothing, You should see my cable bill
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7-15-2009 @ 6:17PM
V8 said...
Bank of America over paid a current signer on an account that I was a past signer on. Then made me pay the mistake because I was not removed from the account (by their error) 6 weeks before when I sign off (or so I was told) and the other person signed on. I paid it after argueing so I will damn sure tell the world that this is not the only way they intentionally screwed me over. Anyone wants more true dirt can e-mail me at V8Fool@aol.com
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7-15-2009 @ 10:33PM
djones528 said...
I think whoever is responsible for the "temporary programming error" should receive a big bonus. We don't want this "talent" to go some place else. We should retain them with big bonus money!
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7-15-2009 @ 10:33PM
Pjbl said...
Folks worried about national debt of a couple of billion. I guess we better get used to trillions and then quadrillions. Whatever the mind can conceive can be.
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7-15-2009 @ 10:33PM
Ed said...
I would not get upset if I saw such an error,,honest. I would simply send an inquiry to BofA,,,,,I may not be able to make the minimum payment this month,,due to other living expenses,,,sooo what might I anticipate in the way of "late fees"??
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7-15-2009 @ 10:33PM
Abraxus said...
There is another story here that we are not being told - I don't believe this is a programming error at all - I think it is a hacking into their system that they don't want to admit because it would scare the crap out of all of us! BTW, all banks do produce reports of accounts that are overdrawn and these reports are reviewed at the branch your account was opened, so these ludicrous charges would have been spotted by someone in a couple of days, but luckily the account holders checked into it themselves - if you have online banking it is easy to set up alerts on credit and checking accounts - I have mine set to email me if any charges over $300 are posted - it doesn't stop them, but I know right away, and doing this made me realize within minutes that someone stole my information online and my card was canceled and the charge (which was a temporary) never made it to the account. Monitor all your accounts daily!
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7-15-2009 @ 7:04PM
Marie said...
This actually happened to my daughters teen visa buxx card. She had went to dinner with some of her friends and went to pay and the card was denied. When she called me I checked her account online to see what was happening as I had just put money on her card. They told me they were so sorry but there was nothing they could do. I think they should have to compensate everyone that was affected by this error in a monetary form of some sort or at least an apology. This is just not good business. What if she had been somewhere that she could not have paid and had been arrested.
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7-15-2009 @ 10:33PM
James said...
That is about par for some places i went to get a Pizza from the Pizza Hut where i live and the Bill was 18.05 so i gave the Kid working 2010 so he wouldn't have to count all that Change, He had to get out a calculater to figure out the change was 2.05 dollars and then he didnt give me the right change and I had to correct him. So it was probably not so much a Bank Problem as it was a worker not knowing what they were doing and typing the amount wrong. If it wasen't for Things that do math for you The Kids now a days Have no Idea how to do Simple math
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7-15-2009 @ 10:34PM
jalan02 said...
Did I read that right? Only 13,000 cardholders were effected? I'd say that was about 12,998 too many. If I conducted my business that way I'd be out of business in a weekend. VISA needs to get their act together.
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7-15-2009 @ 10:35PM
Ron said...
Yep Some people have problems with math and some have problems with proper English and spelling. For example the letter i as used should be capitalized and the word wasn't never had a letter "e" in it. Pizza from the Pizza Hut? When you went to get a pizza from the Pizza Hut only the proper name of the company is capitalized. The bill, the kid, count all that change, bank problems, things that kids do and other examples do not have capitalizations and the word didn't is missing its' apostrophe.
The story did indicate that the problem was committed by a computer error. A program problem caused the computer to make the error.
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7-15-2009 @ 10:35PM
Rick said...
Anyone can make a two oe three million dollar mistake. It takes a computer to really screw up.
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7-17-2009 @ 6:22AM
Joe said...
How can we blame George Bush for this?
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7-16-2009 @ 8:58AM
steve said...
The funny part of this is the $15.00 overdraft fee. LOL
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7-16-2009 @ 8:58AM
sharffj said...
How much for the lighter to go with the pack of smokes
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7-16-2009 @ 9:22AM
dan said...
dddddddddddddddddd
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7-16-2009 @ 9:55AM
popover said...
What comes after Quadrillion ?!?!?!? And don't people check their "receipts" when signing for a purchase? DUH ?
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