PayPal Credits Man With $92 Quadrillion

solareagle writes "Pennsylvania resident Chris Reynolds got quite a shock when he opened his most recent PayPal statement — it said he had a $92,233,720,368,547,800 balance in his account. 'I'm just feeling like a million bucks,' Reynolds told the [Philadelphia] Daily News yesterday. 'At first I thought that I owed quadrillions. It was quite a big surprise.' When asked what he would do with the money, he said, 'I would pay the national debt down first. Then I would buy the Phillies, if I could get a great price.' The Daily News speculates that the astronomical balance may be related to PayPal's new Galactic initiative, announced last month, to expand its business beyond Earth." He should have quickly minted a new coin.

Comments

Signed integer overflow

[GerbilSoft]

2^63 - 1 == 9,223,372,036,854,775,807

Assuming PayPal's currency values are stored in cents, dividing that by 100 results in $92,233,720,368,547,758.07. Looks like a 64-bit signed integer overflowed (or in this case, underflowed), resulting in integer wraparound.

Re:Signed integer overflow

[id10t_corner]

This sounds like a Mycroft Holmes joke.

Re:Signed integer overflow

[Omega Hacker]

Not sure you quite get the concept of underflow.... If it's a 64-bit field in cents and he had $1, an unsigned subtract of $2 would result in a balance of $92,233,720,368,547,757.08 (give or take a few cents).

Re:Signed integer overflow

[The Rizz]

My brain vaguely recalls a Sherlock Holmes reference (father? brother?), but I've only read a few of the stories....

Mycroft Holmes is Sherlock's brother, but that's not the reference he's alluding to here - it's a reference to the computer named Mycroft Holmes in Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.

Re:Signed integer overflow

[plover]

Ok, lets take your way.....

Someone updated the paypal software. And it affected EXACTLY one person.

Right. Dismissed.

Maybe the guy's name is Little Bobby Tables. That'll teach you to sanitize your PayPal names.

Re:Signed integer overflow

[Anonymous Coward]

Kids these days... When I was young we only had 2 billion on our hacked accounts.

Man, slashdot *is* behind the times

[neminem]

I'd never really followed other similar news aggregators before, but I've been following Consumerist for a few months, and indeed, that blog tends to post interesting news a couple days before it ends up here. In fact, it just posted a followup story, that apparently when paypal heard that upon seeing the windfall, even though he the guy knew it wasn't real, he felt compelled to donate 30 dollars to a local charity, paypal offered the guy the chance to donate an unspecified but supposedly substantial amount to the charity of his choice as compensation for the mistake.

Re:Wondering...

[Bork]

Zimbabwe would be a good candidate.

Re:Don't tell the tax man!

[icebike]

We have yet to hear from the person who's account was debited by the same amount.
No doubt that guy is in hospital with a heart attack.

Re:Don't tell the tax man!

[intermodal]

I know exactly how they process that one. Hold sign with name nad numbers, photo from the front, photo from the side, fingerprints, get in your orange jumpsuit.

Unlike Monopoly

[Freddybear]

Bank Error In Your Favor means you Go Directly To Jail if you try to spend the money.

Re:Unlike Monopoly

[Spy Handler]

Paypal isn't a bank. He should've spent the money!

Re:Unlike Monopoly

[AK Marc]

Most countries in the world yes, but not the US, what he should have done was put it in his bank, and get interest off whatever his bank would accept. A few million dollars an hour for PayPal's error, then give back the money when asked. Likely, he'd not have any charges, and get to keep a few million dollars for his trouble. Instead, he'll get nothing but some news articles.

Re:Unlike Monopoly

[PPH]

then give back the money when asked.

Dear PayPal,

Realizing your mistake, I deposited the funds in a bank account for safekeeping and notified your accounting department immediately. I have authorized the funds release to you immediately. Please contact my bank, the First National bank of Nigeria at.....

I can't math

[slashmydots]

"it said he had a $92,233,720,368,547,800 balance in his account. 'I'm just feeling like a million bucks"
Someone's not so good at math, lol.

Re:I can't math

[sootman]

He's a multi-quadrillionaire, he doesn't have to be good at math.

92 Billiard Dollars

[acid_andy]

I prefer the term $92 billiard.

I know, the Long Scale is seen as very archaic these days but the short scale just seems to run out of puff too quick. Quadrillion, indeed!

Re:Don't tell the tax man!

[dimeglio]

You are obviously not a republican.

uh oh

[slashmydots]

That's awfully suspicious. They better freeze Paypal's account, ignore all e-mails, refuse to admit they did it on support phone calls, and take 3 months to resolve it.

Re:What would happen with a national debt of $0?

[Shados]

Probably all of these answers, but in the end, one thing we know for sure: if you paid the debt today, it would be back tomorrow.