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Software Glitch Leads To $23,148,855,308,184,500 Visa Charges
Hmmm2000 writes "Recently several Visa card holders were, um, overcharged for certain purchases, to the tune of $23,148,855,308,184,500.00 on a single charge. The company says it was due to a programming error, and that the problem has been corrected. What is interesting is that the amount charged actually reveals the type of programming error that caused the problem. 23,148,855,308,184,500.00 * 100 (I'm guessing this is how the number is actually stored) is 2314885530818450000. Convert 2314885530818450000 to hexadecimal, and you end up with 20 20 20 20 20 20 12 50. Most C/C++ programmers see the error now ... hex 20 is a space. So spaces were stuffed into a field where binary zero should have been."
Just hyper-inflate the dollar enough and you could spend 23 quadrillion on a bag of chips. Just look at Zimbabwe ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation_in_Zimbabwe ) from the article "On January 16, 2009, Zimbabwe announced plans for imminent issue of banknotes of $10 trillion, $20 trillion, $50 trillion, and $100 trillion". So actually, its possible that the dollar could somehow inflate that high so 23 quadrillion isn't that much.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Things like this happen where I work with our AT&T bills all the time. We're on the smaller end of businesses and have a little over 200 lines. At least a couple of times a year we find a number on our bill that isn't one of our numbers. We contact AT&T, they act baffled, and then they credit us for the error. It's so common that they barely even ask any questions when we dispute the charge. I have to imagine that there are numerous other businesses out there in the same situation, but they aren't going through their bills and are subsiquently paying for services they aren't even using. AT&T even has some BS verbage on their statements that says charges not disputed within 60 days can't be disputed. So they can ream someone for years, and then if the company finds out, they can only recoup the last 60 days worth of over charges.
Meanwhile, you're transferring the gold certificates around, complete with fees for every transaction (straight to the vault owner, naturally) and he still has an impervious vault full of gold. If society breaks down--which gold buyers seem to expect--you really think he'll honor those scraps of paper? No, he'll be riding it out inside the vault.
I'm too paranoid to buy gold, I invested in seed corn. Too large to steal, too real to lose value.
Just another "DOJ fascist authoritarian totalitarian bootlicker" -- Zeio
Actually it looks even simpler then that. It looks like $2.31 was his amount and the rest was his CC number, since the 4885 is a typical Visa Check Card sequence issued by BofA. I wonder if this guy was smart enough to look at his card number and verify that was not the case here, especially before putting it out to the press.