Man Shocked To Find $47M Phone Bill Due To Glitch: 'Adjusted for Inflation'

A man has shared his shock online after his cell phone company gave him a monthly bill of over $47 million.

David, who is from South Wales in the U.K., shared a screenshot from his account with British mobile network operator EE.

The second largest mobile network in the U.K., EE had over 26 million subscribers as of September 2021.

David posted a screenshot of his account to Reddit, taken a few hours after querying about a contract upgrade. He tells Newsweek: "I called to discuss pricing for an upgrade. The agent couldn't find the plan I was offered online in his upgrade system so was going to speak to a manager and call me back. [The] guy was friendly enough and sounded genuine."

Just two hours later, he received a text message to alert him that his plan had been changed. "I was downgraded to a cheaper plan. I wasn't going to complain as I was saving money," said David.

But after waiting, David did not receive a call as expected about his upgrade query. He then decided to message EE via their app to raise a complaint, as his price plan had been changed without his permission.

"I said to leave the price plan alone as I was still awaiting the upgrade colleague to call me back," said David. "Again, no call received."

When he later went to check his app, he was shocked to see the new charge, the equivalent of $47 million.

"[I] called them and they said their end shows my next bill at £50ish ($56), so it must be an app bug due to the pending price plan change," explained David: "They said there were issues with the app, and from the comments on Reddit the new app update isn't the best."

An EE spokesperson told Newsweek: "The monthly payment amount displayed is an obviously an error and we are investigating the cause of this. We're in contact to apologize and provide the correct amount including a gesture of goodwill."

In the comments, Redditors were quick to share their reactions and some well-placed jokes after seeing the app glitch: "Wow, just under 43 million quid!? WHAT A BARGAIN," said one commenter while another joked "Kevin Bacon's fee has really gone up," relating to the fact that the actor stars in TV adverts for the mobile network in the U.K.

"Don't worry, that's just adjusted for inflation for 2023," joked another reply: "That was about £15 ($17) 2 years ago."

When David did get to speak to someone from the network on the phone, they explained what had prompted the glitch in the app. "The agent admitted that the price plan was changed by the team leader for the guy I spoke to earlier in the day and he will leave detailed notes on the complaint as they should not be making changes to accounts without customer's permission and would cancel down the request."

Since this conversation, he said that the bill price on the app updated to a more sensible number.

"Funny thing is, my job is to test software," said David. "So I am amused when I find live bugs."

Earlier this month, a family was shocked when they checked an online bank account to find over $99 billion of debt mistakenly added.