How to fix all of our deficits and obligations? Man charged $23 quadrillion for smokes Posted 7/15/2009 4:31 PM | MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) â A New Hampshire man says he swiped his debit card at a gas station to buy a pack of cigarettes and was charged over 23 quadrillion dollars. Josh Muszynski checked his account online a few hours after the purchase and saw the 17-digit number â a stunning $23,148,855,308,184,500 (twenty-three quadrillion, one hundred forty-eight trillion, eight hundred fifty-five billion, three hundred eight million, one hundred eighty-four thousand, five hundred dollars). Muszynski told WMUR-TV that he spent two hours on the phone with Bank of America trying to sort out the string of numbers â and the $15 overdraft fee. The bank corrected the error the next day. Bank of America said the card issuer, Visa, could answer questions. Visa, in turn, referred questions to the bank.
$15 over draft fee -- that's funny. Boy, what a great way to pay down the national debt -- tax the hell out of booze and smokes. I hear people complain and complain about cigarettes going up to $7.50 per pack but they don't smoke any less. Throw another 3 bucks per pack on there and charge $10.50. I doubt it will deter people from smoking any less.
Cigarette are $11.59 a pack in Penn station. Largest % of smokers probably are on public assistance of some sort (income < 15k a year). The gov is just getting back some of their own money they dole out pretty quick.
I t happenned a couple years here in Quebec (Canada) and people just went to buy non branded cigarettes in the natives reserves. I dont remember if it was a straight black market or just that there is no taxes in natives reserves.