Via Huffington Post, we get the following bit of banking absurdity:
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.
Two immediate interpretations come to mind:
- Americans really have racked up a shocking amount of personal debt.
- The taxes on cigarettes have gone ridiculously high.
Feel free to suggest other interpretations in the comments.
I especially like the fact that he was on the phone with the bank for two hours about this. I can just hear the service representative: “Sir, are you certain that you haven’t written any 23 quadrillion dollar checks this week?”
(Unrelated news: Next Giant’s Shoulders will be up tomorrow, right here!)
Skulls in the Stars 
What is the point of a credit card company’s pre-approval process if they let anyone put a quadrillion dollars on their card? I would think the man should choose not to dispute the charge, then let the gas station take the money from the credit card company. They could give him a 1% gas credit (230 trillion dollars), and everyone wins except Bank of America
Bob – it was not a credit card and there is no “pre-approval” process for the charge. If you don’t dispute the charge then you are personally responsible for the payment not the Bank. Obviously it was a system error and not some sinister plot by Bank of America to take a quadrillion dollars from him. Try reading the article before you make comments next time.
Bob: Did I mention that The Wife works for a bank? 🙂