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.

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: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.

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

[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.

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.