Friday, July 17, 2009

Coincidentally, it cost the same as the next stimulus bill

A guy goes out to buy a pack of smokes, charges them on his Visa. Goes home, checks his finances, and notices something a bit off. Instead of costing a couple bucks, the cigarettes he bought apparently cost more than everything in the world combined. That's right, apparently his cigarettes cost a hair over $23 quadrillion. There are some important things we can learn from this.

1) Smoking is an expensive habit.

2) Always check your credit card transactions against your receipts. You never know when a waiter will throw a couple extra bucks on your tip, or McDonald's might try to charge a couple extra billion for the large fries. As a general rule, if the amount on your statement is at least fifteen digits longer than what you expected, you should complain.

3) It took over two hours on the phone with his bank to sort this out. Let that one sink in for a while, and consider whether you want anything to do with Bank of America.

4) At first they refused to remove the overdraft fee. Well obviously, since he charged several times more money than the entire world has, they're entitled to that extra $15.

5) I'm actually somewhat afraid that the government will see this story and get an idea.