French Woman Beats $14.8 Quadrillion Phone Bill

If I got a phone bill for $14.8 quadrillion, I don’t think the words “bill shock” would quite cover it. I think the cause of my sudden death would have been “bill coronary”. Some people are braver than me though, like one French woman who beat a phone bill of €11,721,000,000,000,000. That’s a lot of zeroes.

For some reason, automated systems at French telco Bouygues Telecom thought that customer Solenne San Jose owed €11,721,000,000,000,000, rather than what it was meant to be: a mere €117.21.

AFP reports that the telecom couldn’t stop the automatic debit from going through, although it was probably unlikely to clear, seeing as how that much money is more than the annual gross domestic product of France itself.

The woman and the phone company got it sorted, and I do hope they gave her something for her trouble besides an apology. At least a Becks and I lie-down I’d have thought.