How many people do you think could say they were in possession of £70 quadrillion in their bank accounts? Answer: probably not that many. But one man from Pennsylvania could.
For only two minutes in 2013, Chris Reynolds had that number in his PayPal account, but it did not last for any longer after the payment company realized its mistake.
That’s more money than anyone could dream of
A quadrillion holds fifteen zeros, there are only nine of those in a billion.
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For reference, Jeff Bezos, founder, chairman, and CEO of Amazon, only has around £157 billion in his net worth, which this man from Pennsylvania totally beat for two minutes.
This happened on his PayPal
On a lucky July day in 2013, Chris Reynolds found a whopping $92,233,720,368,547,800 deposited into his PayPal account.
The $92 quadrillion is equivalent to £70 quadrillion, which is still a lot more than anyone could fathom seeing on their account.
He was richer than the richest
This was also more money than that in possession of the richest person in the world at the time, Carlos Slim.
The Mexican business magnate only had a net worth of $67 billion which appears as spare change next to that of Reynolds at the time.
Reynolds was shocked by the number
Before getting mega rich on a random afternoon, Reynolds said he had only had “a little over $1,000” in his PayPal account.
Those were expected to be there, though, as they were the price of a set of vintage BMW tires he sold on eBay.
The press spoke with Reynolds
The 56-year-old man spoke with Philadelphia Daily News about his overnight wealth saying the 17-digit number made him feel “like a million bucks.” It would have made anyone feel like a quadrillion.
In speaking with CNN he said, “I don’t know, maybe someone was having fun.”
PayPal noticed the error
Unfortunately, the wealth did not last longer than two minutes, after which the payments app noticed the error and quickly fixed it.
PayPal withdrew the money from Reynolds’ account and apologized for causing him an “inconvenience.”
Being rich wouldn’t have been an inconvenience per se
When asked what he would have done with the money if he got to keep it, Reynolds said he would have used it to “pay the national debt down.”
The man from Delaware Country, Pennsylvania, also added that he would buy the Phillies, the Philadelphia baseball team.
PayPal acknowledged the mistake
In a statement, the payment company said, “This is obviously an error and we appreciate that Mr. Reynolds understood this was the case.”
They also offered to give an undisclosed amount from the money to a charity of Reynold’s choice.
They found it inspiring
PayPal congratulated Reynolds on his good spirit, saying, “We hope to honor this spirit by donating to a cause of his choice—we’ve reached out to him to make this offer and to let him know we are grateful that he’s a customer!”
What would you do with such a sum?
We’ve all dreamt of winning the lottery or waking up to find that we’ve suddenly become overnight millionaires, but a quadrillionaire? That’s beyond anyone’s dreams.
From paying off the national debt to buying your favorite sports team, what would you do with a number like that?