You’ve probably heard the expression “richer than God,” usually reserved for people like Bill Gates or some obscenely wealthy oil executive or something. Well, for a brief, shining moment today a Pennsylvania PR executive had a PayPal balance that would make the richest man in the world (a telecom tycoon from Mexico, as it happens) look like a pauper, and maybe even give God a run for His money (pardon the pun).
When Chris Reynolds checked his email on Saturday, he saw that he’d received his PayPal statement for the month of June. Normal so far, right? When he opened it, though, it showed that he had a balance of, well, more money than most countries: $92,233,720,368,547,800. He posted a screenshot of the email on Facebook (like you do):
Of course, Reynolds is a clever man, and so decided to double check his balance before buying countries for himself and his friends. “I was skeptical,” he told the Los Angeles Times. So he logged on to PayPal’s website to check his balance. Sure enough, it was $0.
PayPal, naturally, was a bit embarrassed about the whole ordeal, and offered to make it up to Reynolds. Unfortunately for him, they did not offer to give him the money back (or even a cool million, just to ease the pain a little). Instead, they offered to make a donation to the charity of his choice. The amount of the donation has not been disclosed, but it’s a fairly safe bet it won’t be $92 quadrillion.
When asked what he would have spent the money on if he’d actually been allowed to keep it, Reynolds mentioned paying down the national debt and buying the Philadelphia Phillies.