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How Many Phone Calls Does It Take To Get A $218 Trillion Phone Bill?
from the not-too-many,-apparently dept
Sometimes there are errors that seem so egregious that you figure someone, somewhere along the line should have caught them. It appears that a man in Malaysia has been sent a telephone bill for approximately $218 trillion, which is quite a bit more than the sum of the entire world's GDP (or GWP, if you want to be specific), let alone the Malaysian GDP. The story is that it was the man's father's phone line, which he had disconnected in January after his father's death. At the time, he paid the remaining $23 and assumed everything was settled. Somewhere along the way, though, something got messed up, and the man received this new bill, with the demand that he pay it off within 10 days. You have to give the Associated Press credit for admitting that: "It wasn't clear whether the bill was a mistake, or if Yahaya's father's phone line was used illegally after after his death." However, you have to wonder just how many phone calls it would take, between January when the last bill was paid and now, to create a $218 trillion phone bill. We hope the phone company hadn't started spending on infrastructure improvements while awaiting the payment of the bill. Either way, this seems like the sort of thing that someone (computer or human) probably should have noticed before the bill got sent out.
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Reader Comments (rss)
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never agree
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This much...
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There's an idea
Either way, this seems like the sort of thing that someone (computer or human) probably should have noticed before the bill got sent out.
Computer? You mean if someone cracked the software at a large telco that if any bill goes over say...50 bucks that's taken off the top and charged instead to the CEO's account and the bill is with a balance due of just 50 bucks?
>.>
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Not Hard to Imagine
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Call from HEaven... or hell
If heaven/hell are out of this universe, that gotta explain the bill.
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Probably a dialer infection.
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who knows. or prolly he made a collect call to planet Argon 5 sector z plural 9 5 alpha. that sorta shit can be expensive.
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Computer ERROR
in malaysia , infact in ASIA, the theft of phone line and time, stealing mobile phone air time are very common things. i am not surprised if some group of indonesian or vitenamese hackers got the access of the account and make it public. But again TRILLIONS is impossible.
:)
I hope the guy is not made to pay.
vik
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Re: There's an idea
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Well I have good news for him...
I saved a kazillion dollars doing that.
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Re:
This is already done
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Re:
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Debt
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Re:
Wow, you have a great bank, they just let you transfor over your mortgage to whomever you please on a whim?
Usually to be released from a mortgage you need to pay the whole thing (or die).
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Re:
It doesn't wark that way. The lender would have to approve of the deal first, which would be unlikely if she were hanging over a deadly cliff. Sorry to disappoint you.
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No news yet, will keep you posted. *in region*
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Just a little greedy
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Re: never agree
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You obviously have not met my #2 son.
Kevin Dill
http://ushightech.com
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let's leave that stuff to the pro's right...
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Early Termination Fee.
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Serious?
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my bill is WHAT????????
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Re: my bill is WHAT????????
I know they would help push you toward that cliff edge, ridiculous or not
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One month, I broke my phone. Called Alll, and told them about the broken phone, and to "disable" the account for a month. I didn't get a new phone until the end of the month (out of country, didn't need one). But yet, some how I managed to rack up more than my 2000 minutes in calls.
It took months of work before they decided that I shouldn't have to pay that bill, and to this day, I'm still trying to get the deliquency dings pulled off of my credit report.
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Maccaroni Minutes
But hey, someone did mention Geico right?
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Scan of that Bill!
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Re: Serious?
That's what I was thinking. Any fully automated company could make this kind of mistake and miss it. It's not like there's something in the software that says "IF (bill >= 5 million dollars) set off alarms and pull for human review". Why would they have something like that? When would a bill ever get that high?
This whole thing is more of a funny/interesting story, and the comments here are proof of that. This shouldn't be passed off as news.
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Indeed, they prolly didn't include such line in the software because this practically never happens, but still they should have thought of such a case.
It is said that computers don't make mistake. Unless their system has some kind of defect, it must be some kind of human mistake in the program. Either way, it's better to include such a line just in case, you never know.
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yay for outsourcing!
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Re: Serious?
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Oops
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thats not unusual !
I use vodafone in Europe and use phone few minitues a month and few SMS/text. receive ridiculous amount of bill..
the phone companies policy is very simple!
their subscriber either can have money or phone!
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Telekom Malaysia's Standard operating Procedure
In my case called and wrote to everyone including Collection agency and billing department, no luck. Finally faxed the MD and got a reply that they will look into it.
To cut a long story short, I just paid the bill ... not worth all the hassle for RM160 (US45) coz correspondence and phone calls were already costing me more the RM200.
Wishful thinking on my part that the MD would do something about it after receiving my fax, guess I was wrong. All this happned in middle 2005.
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Don't you guys realize that the rates in the afterlife are a bit higher?
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Re: Re: Serious?
Mistakes happen, but something this big is DEFINATELY news...
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What I would do
If a company lets this get to the point where a collection agency is involved in trying to collect a 218 trillion bill, then they deserve to be sued and bankrupted. It demonstrates massive ignorance and a complete lack of customer care for them to miss this mistake this late in the process.
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Get your dues
Customer service is there for YOU, remember, most companies still operate as if the customer IS the bottom line
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Re: What I would do
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Re: Get your dues
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Re: Re: Re: Serious?
They should be asking questions like:
1) why is our software so badly written that the bill could go out in the first place. Good software checks the reasonableness of all input.
2.) is the billing software integrated with our other financial software and if not why not? How could a bill this big go out, with the implicit impact on the bottom line, and not have it come to the attention of management the same day or the next day.
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I'll second that scan
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P.S. Could you pick up my phone bill for me??
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