PayPal accidentally credits man $92 quadrillion

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/07/17/tech/paypal-error/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

by stehat • 13 years ago

69 23 13 years ago

edition.cnn.com

ColinWright• 13 years ago

Some discussion already: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6053421

There are also several other submissions of the same story.

danso• 13 years ago

I wonder when the error was detected? It's hard to tell, but it sounds like the man notified PayPal himself. But I wonder if he hadn't, how long would it take to trigger some mechanism in PayPal...I mean, aside from him trying to transfer an amount in the quadrillions)? Would some kind of flag go off, triggering a human doublecheck, if he started transferring quantities in the millions every other week?

Of course, this leads to the obvious question: whatever error-detecting mechanism would be triggered...why isn't it in place at the point which the $92 quadrillion transaction is credited? A simple "customer.balance < TOTAL_KNOWN_SUM_OF_WORLDS_CURRENCY" would seem to suffice

icebraining• 13 years ago

Would some kind of flag go off, triggering a human doublecheck, if he started transferring quantities in the millions every other week?

People have got their account suspended for transferring and/or receiving a few thousands. Pretty sure he wouldn't be able to transfer anything close to a million before lock down, unless he had clearance.

In any case, it should be noted that the error only occurred in his email statement. At no point in time could he have touched the money, since "So he logged online -- and reality bit back. His account balance read $0."

Of course, this leads to the obvious question: whatever error-detecting mechanism would be triggered...why isn't it in place at the point which the $92 quadrillion transaction is credited? A simple "customer.balance < TOTAL_KNOWN_SUM_OF_WORLDS_CURRENCY" would seem to suffice

Since it was only in the statement, it was probably an error in the reporting engine, and not in his actual account ledger.

jaydub• 13 years ago

Since it was only in the statement, it was probably an error in the reporting engine, and not in his actual account ledger.

Oh summer interns

jpdoctor• 13 years ago

Pretty sure he wouldn't be able to transfer anything close to a million before lock down, unless he had clearance.

Unless he started working with someone on the inside of PayPal of course. ("Dear Respected One, GREETINGS, Permit me to inform you of my desire of going into business relationship with you. I got your contact from the PayPal accounting department, and I have the believe you are a reputable and responsible and trustworthy person I can do business with from the little information so far I gathered....")

aleyan• 13 years ago

We once had an error that booked quintillions of dollars notional position with a client. It was caught the same night and the client never saw it. Here is how it happened.

An end of day aging process was supposed to look at all positions marked "old" and trade into ones marked "new". Some positions may go through several transition until all the resultant positions are "new", so the process recurses until it finds a fixed point for the day.

This day the aging process for this very bespoke trade went a bit haywire and instead of booking "-1 old position, +1 new position" it booked "+1 old position, +1 new position". Seeing that is still has +2 old position, the process booked "+2 old position, +2 new position", it then booked "+4 old position, +4 new position". This went on for 16 iterations until the auto breaks kicked in and stopped the process. A quant on watch saw the process fail and restarted it causing the positions to double 16 more times.

This was billion dollar deal that grew by 2^32 times plus now existed in old and new variants for a total notional in quintillions of dollars. It was 7pm when the quant called me over because I was the only other guy still there and by happenstance I heard of similar issue happen on my old team. I fixed the position for the night but the permanent solution was made later in normal business hours.

As an aside, when a similar error happened on my old team, the recursion continued until the process ran out of stack. That was when the 16 recursion limit was put in. (The position didn't grow huge that time because it was booking "+0 old position, +1 new position", so the growth was arithmetic and not geometric)

mvanvoorden• 13 years ago

Is it me or do I see a hyphen in front of the amount, making him not the richest guy in the world, but poorer than all nations of the world?

jere• 13 years ago

It appears so. I'm struggling to understand how the account holder and the person who wrote this article missed it.

mmmooo• 13 years ago

don't know what kind of statement it is, but if it is a statement as in a bill, an amount of $140 means 'you owe us $140'. A negative amount would in turn mean 'we owe you'.

M4v3R• 13 years ago

So what would the newly minted quadrillionaire have done with the cash? "I probably would have paid down the national debt," he said.

Good citizen, thinks about his country first. As a matter of fact, he would own 11000 times more money than there are US dollars in existence [1].

I also wonder where this specific number came from. It doesn't look like anything familiar (like INT_MAX).

[1] http://money.howstuffworks.com/how-much-money-is-in-the-worl...

deletes• 13 years ago

The number comes from a singed long long integer ( 64 bits )

2^63 = 9223372036854775808

bill === 9223372036854780000

difference is 4192, last two digits are used for cents.

Tuna-Fish• 13 years ago

It's a little bit more than 2⁶³ in cents.

ExpiredLink• 13 years ago

Probably only a display problem.

mbesto• 13 years ago

Not true. His account never got credited. Crediting assumes that his account balance actually changed, only the report that was created provided misinformation.

Data != information.

josefresco• 13 years ago

Being PayPal, I'm surprised they didn't lock his account, or charge him abosrbant fees for the mistake. /end snark

khuey• 13 years ago

'exorbitant' is the word you're looking for.

jes5199• 13 years ago

I was going to say "looks like they don't use double-entry bookkeeping!" ... but if it's just a display bug, then nevermind.

thehme• 13 years ago

No sure about everyone else, but after this past year, I am wary about anything CNN claims happened.

JeremyMorgan• 13 years ago

It was clearly a display error, its not like the guy could have paid off the national debt considering the real money in that amount never existed in the first place.

suyash• 13 years ago

"I would have paid down the national debt" - This is a real hero!

Aardwolf• 13 years ago

It would have caused devaluation though.

chacham152• 13 years ago

If, instead of being such a large amount, say it were twenty thousand dollars. Thinking that he had a generous benefactor, the recipient went on a shopping spree for ten thousand. Paypal, later determines that it was an error and wants the money back. What is the law with regard to this situation?

Aside: is it just me or does there appear to be a minus in from of the sum in the image?

PayPal accidentally credits man $92 quadrillion

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