|
|
Visa dings teen for $23-quadrillion restaurant charge
Visa says a technical glitch is responsible for a rash of notices warning customers their accounts are overdrawn to the tune of $23 quadrillion.
An anonymous Reg reader tipped us to one emailed statement, which claimed the accountof the tipster’s son was on hold because of a charge made to an Applebee’s restaurant for $23,148,855,308,184,500.00. The tipster continued:
“After checking with him to make sure he really hadn’t purchased 23 quadrillion dollars worth of food from Applebees - he’s really not that big an eater - I called to dispute the transaction. A tired-sounding customer service rep interrupted me: ‘Are you calling about the $23 trillion dollar charge?’ I corrected her “Actually, it’s 23 quadrillion. I looked it up.”
Visa representatives have yet to return a call, but the company has already blamed the notices on a technical glitch, MSNBC reports. The 17-digit charges were applied to holders of the Visa Buxx card, a prepaid card parents can offer teenaged children.
“A temporary programming error at Visa Debit Processing Services caused some transactions to be inaccurately posted to a small number of Visa prepaid accounts,” a Visa spokeswoman wrote in a written statement included in the report. “The technical glitch has been corrected, and all erroneous postings have been removed.”
The Visa Buxx card is designed to help kids learn about finances by helping them track their purchases. It’s already providing a valuable lesson in the importance of reading statements carefully.
