Recently, an unemployed woman in southwestern France received a phone bill for 11.7 million billion euros. Yes - 11,721,000,000,000,000 euros.
This alone is cause for a chuckle at the errors that computers can create (her actual bill should have been 117.21). But what makes it so very French is that when she called the company to report what clearly was an error, she was told there was nothing they could do. "It's calculated automatically," one person told her. Another offered to help set up a payment plan.
Multiple calls later - and after the press had caught wind of the story - Bouygues Telecom corrected the error and in fact waived the 117 euros in light of how ridiculous they looked. It is difficult for me to imagine another country where you call to report the world's largest telephone bill, and the company representative simply shrugs and says there is nothing to be done about it.
Oh France. You are good for a laugh at times.
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