Chris Reynolds, a US citizen from Pennsylvania, became the richest person in the whole world for a few hours. US$92,233,720,368,547,800 was found in Reynolds' email after PayPal made a mistake, which was quickly acknowledged.
The online payment service provider said that it was an obvious error. It even thanked Reynolds for understanding the case. When Reynolds was asked what he would have done with the amount, he told the United Press International, "I'm a very responsible guy, I would pay the national debt down first. Then I would buy the Phillies, if I could get a great price."
The quadrillion dollars is around 1300 times higher than the GDP of the whole world which was around US$70 trillion per year. It was even way above the net worth of the richest man alive, Microsoft tycoon Bill Gates.
PayPal is a company based in San Jose California. It processes up to 7.6 million payments each day with over 128 million active accounts in 193 markets. This year, PayPal expects to process US$20 billion in mobile payments. Its revenue for 2013's second quarter was around US$1.6 billion. It further represented 43% of eBay Inc's profits in the second quarter for this year.
Join the Conversation