After $92 quadrillion was deposited into his PayPal account, a Pennsylvania man was the richest man in the world, but only for two minutes.
Chris Reynolds, a public relations executive, was shocked when he took a look at his PayPal statement after receiving and email that it was ready on Saturday the Los Angeles Times reports. When he opened his statement, he saw an unbelievable number next to his balance: $92,233,720,368,547,800.
Reynolds has 5,500 times the country's national debt of $16.7 trillion in his account. The money didn't stick around for long though.
"I was skeptical," Reynolds said. "And my skepticism was validated within two minutes." When he logged into his actual account, he saw that his balance was back to $0. He had a little fun with the electronic statement though, He took a screen grab photo of the statement and shared it with his Facebook friends.
His friends quickly commented, noting that there was a minus sign in front of the sum, however the balance was still positive. Some friends also got friendlier.
"The tone of the Facebook post turned into 'Hey, remember me?'" Reynolds said. He started to hear from friends that he hadn't heard from in a long time.
PayPal reached out to Reynolds after his story was featured in the Philadelphia Daily News. To make up for the mistake, PayPal offered to donate an undisclosed amoung of money to a charity of Reynolds' choice. He wouldn't say how much exactly, but he did call it "a meaningful donation," even if it was "many digits short" of the $92 quadrillion.
PayPal says they are looking into the issue as they don't have an explanation for the mistake at the moment.
"This was obviously an error and appreciate that Mr. Reynolds understands this was the case," the company said in a statement according to the Times.
As a big baseball and Philadelphia Phillies fan, Reynolds knows exactly what he would do with some of the money. "I've always wanted to own the Phillies," he said. He also said he would pay the national debt and invest the rest.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
