US News

PayPal error makes father-of-three overnight quadrillionaire, briefly

A Pennsylvania man has become an overnight quadrillionaire after a PayPal error left him with a 17 figure bank balance.

Chris Reynolds, 56, a father-of-three from Delaware County, opened his monthly email account to a figure of $92,233,720,368,547,800, according to the Philadelphia Daily News.

The figure catapults him well in front of the world’s richest men, Bill Gates and Carlos Slim, who have a paltry $73.9 billion and $67.7 billion respectively.

Mr Reynolds, who uses PayPal to buy and sell vintage car parts, said he opened his monthly account expecting to see the usual $100 but received a major shock.

“I’m just feeling like a million bucks,” he told the Philadelphia Daily News.

“At first, I thought that I owed quadrillions. It was quite a big surprise.”

Mr Reynolds said he would use the money to pay down the national debt and buy local baseball team the Phillies “if I could get a good price.”

However he didn’t get the chance, as the error had been corrected by the time he logged into his PayPal account.

The next notice Mr Reynolds received from the company said he needed to renew the credit card attached to his account.

“So, even though I have 90 quadrillion dollars, they still don’t trust me,” he said.

A spokesperson for Pay Pal said they don’t discuss individual accounts due to privacy but would look into the matter.

This story originally appeared on news.com.au