A girl in France obtained a invoice for €11,721,000,000,000,000 (that’s 11.7 million billion euros – greater than 5,000 instances the gross home product of France) – it took her days of wrangling with helpline workers to cease it being debited from her checking account. The Guardian reviews:
Solenne San Jose. of Pessac, a Bordeaux suburb, had simply misplaced her job and needed to finish her telephone subscription, when the ultimate invoice arrived. She instructed her native paper, Sud Ouest: “I practically had a coronary heart assault. There have been so many zeros that I couldn’t even work out how a lot it was.”
She referred to as Bouygues Telecom, the telephone firm headed by Martin Bouygues, a good friend of Nicolas Sarkozy, however was instructed by shrugging workers there was nothing they may do. One mentioned: “It’s calculated mechanically.” One other instructed her she could be contacted about paying in instalments. A number of calls later, an adviser admitted it was a mistake: San Jose owed €117.21. The corporate has apologised and let her off the true invoice.