Juan Zamora fed his 1994 Chevy Camaro $26 worth of gas, a transaction for which PayPal charged his debit card $81,400,836,908. Unsurprisingly, PayPal saw nothing wrong with the charge and demanded that Juan prove that he didn’t actually buy $81.4 billion worth of gas.
He only learned of the astounding figure when he received an email later that afternoon informing him that his debit card, which started out with $90 on it, was maxed out.
Initially, Mr. Zamora thought it must’ve been a joke. But after contacting PayPal customer service he was surprised to see that the company treated it as anything but a laughing matter.
“Somebody from a foreign country who spoke in broken English argued with me for 10 to 15 minutes,” Zamora said. ” ‘Did you get the gas?’ he asked. Like I had to prove that I didn’t pump $81,400,836,908 in gas!”
He would have needed more than 3 billion fill-ups of the amount he actually pumped into his tank in order to reach that outrageous sum.
Eventually, Zamora said, he was finally able to convince the representative that he didn’t deserve to be in the same position as General Motors, who has lost roughly 80 billion dollars since 2005.
When Zamora returned to the Conoco gas station, he said, the attendant would not believe him until he showed her the printout of the PayPal receipt.
What moral is Juan taking away from the story? “Pay cash.”
Driver Fills up Gas Tank, Receives Bill For $81 Billion [Consumer Energy Report via Jalopnik]
(Photo: NASA)
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Maybe she should have been driving a hybrid. Good luck getting it cleared up with Paypal.
@RodAox: It’s not Paypal’s fault. They were just skipping the middle-man and taking their rightful bailout money directly from the taxpayer! Hell, they probably saved a few million in lobbying and bureaucratic overhead in the process! Kudos to Paypal for saving us money!
@Streyeder: Actually, this is just the standard Paypal fee on a $26 purchase.
@Coles_Law: HAHAHA!
Down with Paypal’s idiotic fees.
@Coles_Law: Thread is over. You win the internets.
@RodAox: The irony is that if Juan was driving a Hummer, there’s no way he could have argued that $81,400,836,908.00 isn’t an average charge to fill ‘er up.
I hope Juan keeps pressing this issue, to find out WHY this happened. What if he was traveling and was counting on using his debit card for food or other expenses? He’d have been screwed. It’s fine that they’re going to fix it if he proves he didn’t get that much gas, but they need to find out why it happened so they can prevent it from happening again.
@chatterboxwriting: I agree entirely. $81 billion isn’t a glitch, it’s a system failure of epic proportions.
@chatterboxwriting:
If they force him to prove he didn’t spend 81 billion dollars, there is something MASSIVELY wrong with paypal. This is the type of thing where they should fix it immediately and pray that noone looks into how an 81 billion dollar charge could have possibly shown up. It has to be a glitch in their software, or something, and if it has happened to him, how many other people could it have happened to in amounts much smaller than 81 billion dollars? Would you notice an accidental dollar taken from your account?
On the bright side though, with 81 billion dollars in debt on the books, this guy must qualify for a bank bailout. He might come out ahead if he plays his cards right.
@chatterboxwriting: Optimistically, that means that someone, somewhere was credited $81B.
If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to buy some eBay stock. I sense an upcoming shopping spree of EPIC proportions…
@chatterboxwriting: Also, were there penalties for overdrafting his debit card?
@chatterboxwriting: This actually happened in my city. The local paper reported that the “81400836908″ number was actually the Conoco ID number. Apparently the two numbers ($ amount and ID) were swapped somehow during the transaction.
@Kevin Davis: link to original story
[www.tri-cityherald.com]
@Kevin Davis:
Probably just a random glitch. There was a similar story on Consumerist about a guy that got charged some millions of $ for a sandwich. I doubt it was happening to a lot of people.
My dad got a $40,000ish electric bill last year. Turns out they mixed up his account with some large business account. Of course, they didn’t ask him to prove that he wasn’t running a factory in his basement. They just politely unfuckulated his bill.
Then why did he agree to buy a tank of gas for everyone in the country?
I’m being facetious of course.
By the way, the SR-71 doesn’t use gasoline, it uses JP-4, a type of kerosene.
@Greasy Thumb Guzik: MMM… you gotta love the smell of JP-4, though.
@Greasy Thumb Guzik: Beautiful, beautiful aircraft. The SR-71 is my favorite exhibit at the Air and Space museum.
@pecan 3.14159265: Fantastic aircraft. There is one on display at the Cosmosphere in Hutchinson, KS that you can walk right up and touch. Quite awe-inspiring.
@Greasy Thumb Guzik: JP-7, Shirley?
@Greasy Thumb Guzik: I thought the SR-71 used hydrogen peroxide as fuel. Not the 3% stuff you put in your ears, the 100% stuff that would make a small plant light on fire if you poured it on the plant.
@Greasy Thumb Guzik:
SR71 uses JP-7
[en.wikipedia.org]
@johnarlington:
and it leaks until the thing gets up to temperature and everything expands from skin friction. the fuel is also a little more complex including some additional additives to the JP-7 to allow it to multi-task as hydraulic fluid running the flight controls AND as a coolant for internal systems before being burned. There are also additives (originally cesium based now….other based) to try and reduce the radar return of the contrails.
@Todd Fernandez: Tough to get financing on a new SR-71 these days anyways.
@Greasy Thumb Guzik:
Actually, JP-6. A special formulation of kerosene and boron that only the SR-71 uses.
@Greasy Thumb Guzik: The SR-71 actually used JP-7 fuel. The only AC in the USAF inventory to use it as well.
Maybe he had a leak in his tank and the gas leaked out as he was pumping it in?
@Closed captioning provided by Homerjay:
Makes the SR71 pic pretty appropriate, I guess.
@TechnoDestructo: Haha, +1.
@TechnoDestructo: Indeed, but a better pic would be an SR-71 parked on the ramp. At cruising speed and altitude, the leaks go away due to thermal expansion.
@Closed captioning provided by Homerjay:
can the pumps even go that high what is the hard limit $9999.99?
some CC have soft $100 – $75 limits. Do the pumps have any that are not card based?
@Joeb5: There’s no way pumps ever go anywhere near what is absolutely feasible for most cars or RVs or whatever to hold.
The most bizzare thing in this case is that PayPal, being the dense jerk it is, didn’t automatically go “well that must be wrong…”
@pecan 3.14159265: Oops. What I mean is, there’s no way RVs or cars could come close to pumping any amount of gas that would approach the threshold for what the pumps will interpret as a real amount.
@Joeb5: over the summer, i got to drive a mini bus with a tank capacity of 30-35 gallons. with gas prices averaging $4/gal, we would usually max out the $100 auth and have to “start over” to top off the bus.
it’s obvious what happened here- he re-auth’d 800 million times.
@Joeb5: Working for a gas station, the highest I’ve ever seen was $600 of diesel for the train yard across the street from us. The pumps would not allow anymore than that on a single transaction. That was also when diesel was running around $1.45 or so a gallon.
@Closed captioning provided by Homerjay:
gas station tanks don’t even hold that much gas! it’s not possible to buy that much in one transaction..
@kman13: You mean they don’t pump it directly out of the ground and into my tank?
Paypal thought he was buying a few weeks of the rethuglican conflict in Iraq?
@CMU_Bueller: Love it, everyone piles on the anti-Dem comment and this one goes ignored.
@TracyHamandEggs: Nothing positive can come from arguing/debating/pontificating with someone mired in the Red Team – Blue Team stuff.
On Point:
I use Paypal on a free checking account that is isolated specifically for e-commerce transactions. No other traffic ever hits this account. I keep $1 in the account unless I am conducting a transaction that mandates the use of Paypal. I then transfer just enough funds to cover the transaction from another account into the Paypal account. I have spoken to my financial institution and instructed them to disable any “courtesy” over draft protection (what a joke) on said account.
If a screw up happens I am out $1 and possibly some hassle time. Better than the alternative in my mind.
@TracyHamandEggs: Actually, the further down you go, the more likely a comment is to be ignored, especially if it’s something like this. Not at all surprising, really.
@TracyHamandEggs: E-mail the moderator directly when you see bad comments. X-Keeper is right that lower comments get missed and it’s especially true for comments that don’t result in wank.
Pics or didnt happen!
@aerick79: It’s PayPal, of course it happened.
@Spaztrick: +1.
Someone actually had a problem with paypal? Nuh Huh.
That’s a lot of free car washes!!
It’s paypal, enough said
Uh.. why would he be paying for gas via paypal anyway? Unless it was one of those PayPal visas.
@Ameer Hashw: Cash back. The percentage is pretty high on an $81 billion transaction.
@Ameer Hashw: I pay for a lot of stuff out of my PayPal account, I have a merchant account, which comes with a debit card. In general, it has fewer fees, better cashback, and more clued-up user reps than my “official” BoA account.
Well, their name is half right. You’re going to pay, but they’re not your pal.
Don’t keep money in your Paypal account (Paypal can hold your money for several months without providing a reason per their TOS) and don’t bother with their debit card.
@Zain: I agree about not keeping a balance in PayPal but their debit card is a faster way to withdraw money than waiting 5 days for a transfer to your bank account. You can withdraw up to $400/day via an ATM & unlimited/day as a debit card in stores.
@MrsLopsided: Why not just get a debit card from your bank?
@pecan 3.14159265: With my PayPal debit card I can access and spend funds deposited to my PayPal account (from buyers and clients) within minutes of the deposit. The alternative is to initiate a transfer to my bank account and wait 4-5 days in limbo before it hits my bank account.
@MrsLopsided: …and then one day your PayPal account gets frozen because someone used a stolen credit card, or does a chargeback, or claims their account was stolen, or the other myriad of minor issues that PayPal is known to freeze accounts for months for. This guy’s story is a perfect example. Nobody would reasonably make an $81 billion purchase via PayPal, and he STILL had to convince them otherwise.
Using PayPal is like crossing a seldom used highway without looking both ways: most of the time it’s safe and quick, but it only takes one unlucky day to make your life miserable.
@pecan 3.14159265: I have a debit card from my bank, like most people. But PayPal gives you 1% cashback on your PayPal debit card purchases…which is a far greater return than the so-called “Rewards” points that I get for using my debit card.
@WachoviaEmployee: So use a credit card, many of which offer better than 1% rewards.
@MrsLopsided: Don’t you have to pay ATM fees if you use an ATM to get your Paypal money? I would say that’s not worth it.
@MrsLopsided: I haven’t had a paypal transfer to my bank account take more than 2-3 days.
@verucalise: That’s 2-3 days longer than using the debit.
I Use my PayPal debit card all the time because I get cash back.
If he would have used his card as a credit transaction he could have gotten 1% cash back… that’s $814,008,369!!!
@se7a7n7: Considering how crappy PayPal is to everyone, perhaps you should consider something else that gives cash back.
@se7a7n7:
They would have paid attention to the error then.
@TechnoDestructo: Perhaps.
Accounts Payable: Oh ho ho, that’s gotta be an error. LOL.
Accounts Receivable: The $81 Billion is late, that’s 29% APR.
@se7a7n7:
Look, if you are grandfathered in to the original cash back rate I can understand that you wish to maintain the high cash back. But if not, if you just get the 1% rate, switch to Chase Freedom or another worthwhile card.
You get NO protection with a PayPal debit card. NONE. If you run into an issue, PayPal will find a way to screw you in the end. Chase Freedom is a great card, offers a great bonus (When you accumulate $200 in cash back, you get ‘$50′ for free, effectively making your cash back around 1.75%).
A real credit card is always going to be superior to PayPal debit. Always.
Hmm, maybe the gas station will fix their machine when the see the merchant fees they paid on that.
Taking the generic 2%+.20 would be over 1 million dollars.
@wcnghj:
WAY over. (You’re minus 3 zeros.)
This is outright theft and fraud if the store charged the correct amount and paypal adjusted it while still only giving the original amount to the store.
These gas station credit card holds are getting out of hand!
PayPal has debit cards? That’s news to me.
@pecan 3.14159265: It is the best tool they have as it allows you to instantly empty the account at the local ATM.
Cards are issued by Chase, so you can use any Chase ATM for free (Paypal does charge a $1 fee for all ATM transactions).
The card also comes with cashback, I’m grandfathered in with a 1.5% CB bonus.
if you buy gas on a regular VISA or MasterCard or Discover, they limit the amount per transaction to something like 70 bucks.
I’m guessing that the debit system with PayPal does not have this limitation, although my regular bank debit card has a 400 dollar a day transaction limit to avoid fraud
@HawkWolf: Locally, the limit was raised to $150 for all credit cards due to the cost of a full tank. Even though the price at the pump is less, the same $150 limit is still there (summer isn’t too far away).
Good thing this was not a Credit card, at 18% finance charges, he would have owed almost 15billion in interest every month assuming that he could not pay the credit card off in full every month (but every Consumerist reader always pays off their CC bill in full every month so this is a non issue…right?!?!?)
@Rachacha: Chargeback!
@Rachacha: If he indeed used by a credit card, the transaction would never have gone through. It’s way over his credit limit.
I would have definitely suggested using a credit card. Not only are you protected from situations like these, your debit account would not have been depleted while you wait for this situation to be resolved.
By my calculations it would take about 17,000 years to pump that much gas.
@MrsLopsided: But with the way that gas prices have been fluctuating, who can really tell these days?
The lesson I take away from this story is DON’T USE PAYPAL unless you absolutely must.
Why? 1)They’re not a bank, and they’re not bound by the same laws and regulations that banks are; 2) They have absolutely no compunctions about fucking you over very badly; and 3) If they do, you’ll have virtually no recourse as long as they abide by the rules that they themselves wrote, because of #1.
You can bet your ass that if Juan had been charged $81 instead of $81 billion for his 26 dollar fill-up that he STILL wouldn’t have his money back, and would likely wind up having to write it off.
@TinyBug:
Good points. The fear that I have is that PP is just the first of many financial service providers that are/aren’t what they purport to be . Paypal takes in money,but it’s not a bank. Paypal pays interest and charges for handling money,but it’s not a savings and loan. In fact,the list of what PP isn’t is a damn sight longer than what it says that it IS.
Since they have exploited every comma splice and ambiguity in the law,they are running what amounts to a large unregulated bank that doesn’t pay for or have any intention of getting FDIC protection. They also sidestep laws that are intended to protect depositors from malfeasance and outright theft by getting you to agree to TOS that pretty much takes away any rights you may have with a regulated entity.
I have always had a queasy feeling about Paypal, and the events of the last 8 months have made me even more leery of a financial company that seemingly answers to no one,not even it”s customers.
If it ever blows up,it shouldn’t surprise anyone.
@TinyBug: Yes, every story I read about PayPal and every anecdote I hear from my friends about their lousy run-ins with the “service” make me more and more happy I’m not in a position to have to use them.
Yes, the moral of this story is to try to reduce or remove your dependency on PayPal.
What I find concerning is that a CSR was trying to argue that an $81 billion gas station card swipe wasn’t an error. Is logic forbidden in call centers now?
@bohemian: Unfortunately when you only speak enough English to read from a script it’s easy to see anything as arguable. (Note: I’m not justifying the arguing in any way. This comment is 100% snark.)
@Nicole Smith: The CSR may also not have a good idea of what the value of a dollar actually is.
@sburnap42: If he’s in India trying to make the conversion from rupees, he might not make the connection. A billion rupees is only $19,615,535 so it’s easy to confuse the two.
Or if he used to live in pre-Euro Italy, a billion Lira is only $12.87.
‘What moral is Juan taking away from the story? “Pay cash.”‘
I find it just a bit annoying, lazy, and fickle for your advise to be ‘pay cash’. Especially considering ALL your other posts tell everyone they should charge it to a card so you can fight the company or do a charge back.
If Juan’s car broke down and left him stranded in the middle of nowhere would your advice be ‘ride a bike’?
@synimatik: No, he should pay cash to the taxi that shows up.
@synimatik: Very astute observation…hindsight is 20/20, and giving advice post hoc to fit the situation isn’t exactly helpful.
Paypal outsources the CSRs at their call center, but the supervisors all seem to be “local.” I’ve had a few calls where I escalated the call and got the desired result that way.
You’re saying a business would turn down $81 Billion dollars at the cost of a measly $1.6 Billion (and 20 cents). I think not.
Ummm…What kinda nimrod uses a debit card to purchase anything anyway, and more to the point, what kinda nimrod uses a >>PAYPAL<< debit card?
For the information of those few people who haven’t figured it out yet: PayPal is not a bank. They don’t operate under the same rulse that banks and other established financial institutions work under. You and any money to have on deposit with them are totally at their mercy. Please, for the love of GOD: Use PayPal to pay and receive payments, and remove money to your bank acoount as soon as humanly possible, Do not allow PayPal any leverage over you at any time ever.
I think PayPal thrives off bad publicity or something.
@aguacarbonica:
It’s more that they don’t really have an incentive to care. They are owned by eBay and have a near-monopoly on eBay payments, especially since eBay has pretty much banned paying by check or money order. If you want to buy or sell on eBay, you pretty much have to use PayPal, so they have no reason to try to have a good reputation for customer service.
He’s too big to fail, get his a bailout!
…get him a bailout.
I don’t believe this story. PayPal’s debit cards are operated by Chase; if he was really charged that much, Chase’s fraud department would have caught on. And even paypal wouldn’t actually think that someone charged that much. Besides, PayPal debit cards have daily limits as do all other debit cards.
Paypal’s day has come and gone. They need to go to way of the other horrendous companies that are undeserving our our money.
Is there even $81 billion worth of gas on Earth?
@FuryOfFirestorm: Exxon Mobil would likely say there is. AND HOW!?
$81,400,839,908 would only have gotten him half a tank in Zimbabwe.
“Somebody from a foreign country who spoke in broken English”. GREAT, another company throws customer service out the window and hires a foreign call center with employees who can’t understand problems beyond the script handed to them!
That said, while the economic timing is horrid, Paypal should have been ruled a bank by the courts years ago and be under FDIC laws. Them being able to act like a bank, offer financial services yet not have to follow any laws has cost consumers countless dollars.
Yes it is a laughing matter.
The CSR should have been laughing along with the customer during the 30 seconds it took to correct the problem.
Beyond 30 seconds…..
I would have contacted my local investigated TV/newspaper reporter and let them have fun with the FleaBay Management
The explanation for the figure, which I heard in a radio news account this evening, was that the customer was charged the merchant’s account number with Paypal. Now we need an explanation for how the merchant’s number was confused with the debit amount.
No one should be using Paypal, period. I had legitimate business with paypal for several years. I used instant bank transfers when buying small items on eBay. Then one week I had 3 “paypal debit card” transactions totaling $140 show up on my personal checking account. I never had a paypal debit card, and paypal had no record of me ever having one. They said that the charges did not come out of my paypal account, so they did not exist as far as they were concerned. Even though I had proof on my bank statements. My bank said it looked like internal fraud from paypal, and returned the money. I had to close my personal checking account and open a new one. I will never use paypal again.
Just another day at PayPal. I mean, it’s entirely reasonable of course that a service station REALLY is carrying $81.4 Billion Dollars in Gas.
I can agree with this guy because Paypal is greedy. When I was getting a couple hundred dollars for helping some friends for doing good and they paid me this way, Paypal limited my account with some bull saying stuff such as “Your a risk user” or something like that and they want you to verify all your personal information.
So this story makes sense to me about Paypal. Google Checkout anyone?
WTF?
“When Zamora returned to the Conoco gas station, he said, the attendant would not believe him until he showed her the printout of the PayPal receipt.”
As if the gas station actually has the capacity to hold $81,400,836,908 worth of gas.. wow…. I’m surprised, but not as surprised by the PayPal rep in (India?) arguing this, but the gas station attendant? brilliant
How long would it actually take to pump $81,400,836,908 worth of gas?
That $35 overdraft fee finally seems to be in proportion to the actual overdraft….
I came for the story, I stayed for the comments. lol
My favorite part is where they draw a parallel to GM’s losses since 2005…
Yet another reason (as if we needed any more) that Paypal sucks.
Nascar’s gas bill is less than this, for the whole season.
Good call paypal.
Reminder to self, cancel paypal acct.
I can’t believe he would even have to explain himself to anyone. I think I would have to ask the CSR what gas station could hold 32,560,334,763 gallons of gas. (And that would be premium btw)
Paypal just recently screwed a friend of mine, I say boycott them.
Why wasn’t the transaction declined?
Question is ..was his Camaro , bitchin?