A French woman “nearly had a heart attack” after she opened her latest phone bill and found that she was being charged the equivalent of 15 quadrillion U.S. dollars, French newspaper Sud Ouest reported.
Solenne San Jose, from the Bordeaux suburb of Pessac, wanted to suspend her phone account because she had recently lost her job as a nanny. When her bill arrived, it showed she owed €11,721,000,000,000,000. According to the French newspaper, this is 5,872 times the GDP of France in 2011.
“There were so many zeros, I couldn’t even work out how much it was,” San Jose told Sud Ouest.
When she reached out to phone company Bouygues Telecom – owned by Martin Buyogues, billionaire and friend of Nicolas Sarkozy– customer service reps said that there was nothing they could do. One employee even said that “it’s calculated automatically,” according to Sud Ouest.
San Jose said that it took several days for the company to fix the mistake and make the correction. The woman only owed €117.21 ($152), Sud Ouest reported.
Next time you complain about the monthly phone bill, think about Solenne.
