Bol.com tries to draw 36.850.000.000.000.001 from shoppers credit card
Written on January 26, 2008 – 12:01 am
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten,
Dutch journalist/blogger Maarten Reijnders bought a few books at Bol.com just before Christmas. He received a statement this week from his credit card company that it failed to process a payment for €36.850.000.000.000.001 and suggested he contact Bol.com.
Bol.com (NL) CEO Daniel Ropers quickly responded with a promise to find out “how it is possible that we show and charge amounts with an accuracy of 10 zeroes”.
I can’t wait to see the Q1 results of Bol.com… The expectations of the shareholders are very high, as you can imagine after a sale like this. I had to look up how to pronounce this number on wikipedia.
For the record: in US and Modern British it is: Thirty-six-quadrillion-eight-hundred-fifty-trillion-and-one Euro in traditional British it is: Thirty-six-billiard-eight-hundred-fifty-billion-and-one Euro. In Dollars? Well grab your calculator and multiply 36.850.000.000.000.001 with 1,471 (The current dollars to euro rate).
I am pretty sure Bol.com could buy the Library of Congress if they succeed in charging Reijnders card.
Thanks to Bright (Dutch)
UPDATE: The numbers in this post aren’t correct. The thing that threw me off was the sentence ‘I didn’t remember ordering the whole BOL.com catalog’ in the original article which led me to think in billions. Also see comments.
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By rory on Jan 26, 2008 | Reply
I think you misinterpreted the amount, hence “Ik zal eens navragen waarom we bedragen tot tien cijfers ‘na de komma’ berekenen en vermelden”.
By joshua on Jan 26, 2008 | Reply
Since you write in English, the amount in the post title for instance, should be ‘36,850,000,000,000,001′.
It is different from Dutch.
Wij domme Nederlanders zijn volgens mij de enigen die komma’s en punten omdraaien. We zouden het moeten doen zoals de rest van de wereld!
@rory: I agree with you
You should have read that Dutch post better :P
By Marc on Feb 1, 2008 | Reply
Boris,
I just read the original article at BRIGHT. Unfortunately I don’t think you received a high grade at school for text comprehension: this company did not try to draw any money from the credit card (they informed the customer that he still has an outstanding balance), nor was the amount in the billiards or something. The exact amount was a little over 36 euro and 85 cents. The rounding of the 85 cents is what the BRIGHT article describes.
By Boris on Feb 2, 2008 | Reply
Thanks for all the comments! This is what happens when you write stuff in a hurry. The thing that threw me off was the sentence ‘I didn’t remember ordering the whole BOL.com catalog’ but I should have double checked it before posting. Lesson learned.
By joshua on Feb 2, 2008 | Reply
Ok. I’ll forgive you :P