HN Explorer

17 comments

[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 60.0 ms ] thread
rocky1138
What sort of problem would cause this error?

Can we glean anything from Paypal's system by the amount that he was accidentally credited?

manmal
A memory error perhaps, causing an int64 overflow?
celwell
weird that it's the same number as a comment from 7 years ago (see the second to last comment on page): http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20060803223509AA...
bpicolo
Not weird. It's 2^63. (64 bit signed number).
EpicEng
Not quite. 2^63 is 9223372036854775808, and the max value for a signed 64-bit int would be one less than that. Close enough to wager that the article may have been slightly off.
gus_massa
Probably the last two digits are used for cents (like in a Decimal type) and perhaps he has $41,92 real dollar in his account (or the reporters just decided to round it).
EpicEng
Ah, yes, that's what I get for not actually reading the article.
luminiferous
Yep, the figure mentioned is 2^63 cents, rounded to the nearest hundred dollars. I'd wager the article rounded, though I'm not sure why.

EDIT: gus_massa's theory makes a lot more sense, especially considering that the guy said he donated 30 bucks, and then afterwards his account listed $0. Presumably he had 2^63 cents + 30ish dollars, which was rounded up.

[dead] qwerta
The Ending Balance has a minus sign. So this guy is not rich, but in massive debt. At least get the basic math right.
gexla
In the words of Chris Rock "good lord that's a lot of money!"

With that much money I could contribute to world peace by buying off the remaining members of the axis of evil.

The next thing I would do is grant the wish of the petition to the White House to build a deathstar.

Edit: Just checked, the estimate to build a deathstar would be 852 quadrillion. I would only have enough for a down-payment. You aren't ballin' until you can afford a deathstar.

sidcool
It's Ebay, what do you expect?
lcedp
Integer overflow?

    (2 ** 64) / 2 = 9223372036854775808
uppe
I don't care how the number appeared. I'm confused how everyone seem to think he was "credited" with the astronomic sum. If you read the statement you can clearly see a negative sign in front of the number. He was not credited. He was massively in debt.
aymeric
Indeed, I thought the same thing but I thought maybe I read wrong...
equalsdanny
The thing is, this guy "transferred" the money to a different PayPal account. So there is actually a guy, who got "credited" with ~90 quadrillion.
fnordfnordfnord
> He was massively in debt.

In which case, I am surprised that PayPal gave in so easily instead of referring his acct to a collection agency. /s

anonu
isnt't the balance negative? Doesnt that make him the poorest man in the world?