Think Your Phone Bill is High?

[Aggie87]

$218 trillion phone bill uncalled for, man says

By The Associated Press

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — A Malaysian man was speechless when he received a $218 trillion phone bill and was ordered to pay up within 10 days or face prosecution, a newspaper reported Monday.

Yahaya Wahab said he disconnected his late father's phone line in January after he died and settled the 84 ringgit ($23) bill, the New Straits Times reported.

But Telekom Malaysia later sent him a bill for 806,400,000,000,000.01 ringgit ($218 trillion) for recent telephone calls along with orders to settle within 10 days or face legal proceedings, the newspaper reported.

It wasn't clear whether the bill was a mistake, or if Yahaya's father's phone line was used illegally after his death.

"If the company wants to seek legal action as mentioned in the letter, I'm ready to face it," the paper quoted Yahaya as saying. "In fact, I can't wait to face it."

Yahaya, from northern Kedah state, received a notice from the company's debt-collection agency this month, the paper said. Yahaya said he nearly fainted when he saw the new bill.

Government-linked Telekom Malaysia is the country's largest telecommunications company.

A company official, who declined to be identified because she was not authorized to speak to the media, said Telekom Malaysia was aware of Yahaya's case and would address it.

Edited April 12, 2006 by Aggie87

[catesta]

As a joke I would have offered to send them $20 from my next paycheck on Friday.

[Free For All]

As a joke I would have offered to send them $20 from my next paycheck on Friday.

Yes, the phone company is well known for its sense of humor!

[RDK]

The dead guy's phone, obviously, was used by my mother-in-law...

[Aggie87]

The dead guy's phone, obviously, was used by my mother-in-law...

... i'm still getting a laugh over the ".01 ringits" on the bill. Couldn't they just round that off, make it a nice, even 806,400,000,000,000.00?

[Claude]

Something even weirder, given the consequences, happened in Germany:

http://www.zdf.de/ZDFde/inhalt/16/0,1872,2271568,00.html

A retired man had declared to the tax authorities his income from various stocks: 11.000 DM ($5000). Later he found out it was in fact more - 17.000DM - and he phoned the tax authorities in order to correct his declaration.

The person in the administration undertook the correction in the computer program, but instead of replacing 11.000 by 17.000, typed 17.000 right behind the 11.000, so as if the man had declared an stock income of 1.100.017.000 DM = $550 million.

The rest of the tax procedure was fully automated: the man received a letter requesting him to pay $280 million taxes. He phoned the tax authorities, who promised to correct the error. But this seemed more complicated than it appeared. Some time later, his bank account was frozen by the administration because of the $280 million tax debt.

The man hired a lawyer who wrote a letter to the administration, requesting them to repair the error immediately, and the administration accepted.

Now comes the weirdest part: because of the rigid german lawyer regulations, the lawyer had the right to receive as "compensation of expenses" for his actions (the letter) a certain percentage of the amount of the case, and because the case was worth $280 millian, he had the right to receive $2.3 million, to be paid by the conceding party, the public administration.

[Aggie87]

If you consider the possibility - as stated in the article - that the phone line actually WAS used illegally after the father passed away, and was in use continuously for roughly 3 months (January to April), that equates to about (3 months * 30 days * 24 hours *60 minutes) 129,600 minutes.

Dividing the $218 trillion, you get a per-minute cost of $1,682,098,765.43. ($1.6 Billion/per minute )

What phone service could possibly have a rate like that?? Someone must have had a SERIOUS jones for some phone sex!

[BruceH]

Funny that in Malaysia you pay your phone bill in "ringgits."

[catesta]

Funny that in Malaysia you pay your phone bill in "ringgits."

nyuk nyuk nyuk

[Daniel A]

Now comes the weirdest part: because of the rigid german lawyer regulations, the lawyer had the right to receive as "compensation of expenses" for his actions (the letter) a certain percentage of the amount of the case, and because the case was worth $280 millian, he had the right to receive $2.3 million, to be paid by the conceding party, the public administration.

The administration perhaps should have hired another lawyer to find a loop-hole, only that lawyer would only get 230 000...

[connoisseur series500]

Funny that in Malaysia you pay your phone bill in "ringgits."

Plus those ringgit banknotes have an image of this guy with a turban on his head.

I've spent that currency on a visit there, and I may still have a spare bill around here somewhere...