12 quadrillion euro phone bill shocks woman

Nobody likes paying their phone bill. But when the bill is nearly 12 quadrillion euros severe anxiety can ensue.

Of course, in this case, the bill was a mistake. When Bouygues Telecom customer Solenne San Jose of Bordeaux, France, opened her bill, she said she nearly had a heart attack. "There were so many zeroes I couldn't work out how much it was," she said, according to the BBC. For the record, the amount she was being asked to pay is 11,721,000,000,000,000 euros, equal to nearly 6,000 times France's annual economic output.

When San Jose originally contacted customer service she was apparently told there was nothing the phone company could do. The Daily Mail writes that the phone company told her "she was liable for the sum, insisting it would automatically be withdrawn from her bank account." The company did offer to set up an installment payment plan. San Jose wisely declined.

Eventually, the mess was straightened out. The decimal point was put in the wrong place, and 12 zeroes were accidentally added to the bill. Bouygues Telecom apologized and waved the 117.21 euros San Jose actually owed.