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$23-Quadrillion Charge for Cigarettes, Due to Visa Software Glitch

by Warren Riddle on July 16, 2009 at 02:13 PM


Federal and state taxes levied on cigarettes have increased exponentially recently, but anything over, say, $1-million per pack seems a bit steep. According to FOXNews, at least three consumers in Tennessee, Texas, and New Hampshire were each charged $23 quadrillion ($23,148,855,308,184,500) after purchasing cigarettes with Visa debit cards.

Visa attributed the absurdly astronomical charges to "a temporary programming error" which caused them to be "inaccurately posted to a small number of Visa prepaid accounts." You think? Visa did say that they have fixed the error and removed all of the false charges. The victims handled the frustrating service issue with aplomb and good humor, with one telling WMUR-TV, "I though somebody had bought Europe with my credit card."

Surely the customers instantly knew they wouldn't be responsible for the charges, but you can bet their reactions would have been different if things were reversed and they suddenly found nearly infinite money sitting in their bank accounts. Flee to Switzerland, anyone? [From: FOXNews]

Tags: bill, top, VISA, VISA charge errors, VISA overdraft charges, VisaChargeErrors, VisaOverdraftCharges

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