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From: jjohnson@hpljaj.hpl.hp.com (Jeff Johnson)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Overbilled by Six Orders of Magnitude
Message-ID: <12576@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 25 Sep 90 15:54:35 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 676, Message 7 of 8


Excerpted from the 9/21/90 {San Jose Mercury-News}:

PHONE BILL'S WRONG NUMBER:  $8.7 MILLION

Chicago (AP) -- Cori Ward's mother got a little defensive when she
received a phone bill for three weeks' service -- $8.7 million.

"She says, 'I only called my sister,'" said Ward, who handles her
elderly mother's bills.

The bill from Illinois Bell should have read $87.98, not $8,709,800.33.

Ward said she had a hard time explaining the mistake to the phone 
company.

The error occurred when someone incorrectly typed a "correction" into
the computer system, said Larry Cose, a Bell spokesman.