Pennsylvania Woman Shocked By $284 Billion Electric Bill

"My eyes just about popped out of my head," Erie resident Mary Horomanski said.
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You can’t blame Mary Horomanski for getting a little charged up when she saw her electric bill earlier this month.

When the Erie, Pennsylvania, resident checked how much she owed the electric company online, she was met with a bill for a whopping $284 billion.

Yeah, you read that right.

“My eyes just about popped out of my head,” the 58-year-old Horomanski told the Erie Times-News. “We had put up Christmas lights and I wondered if we had put them up wrong.”

On the bright side, she had a full year to pay the entire $284 billion. Her minimum payment would be a mere $28,156, according to The Associated Press.

For some reason, Horomanski suspected there might have been a billing error, which was confirmed when her son called electricity provider Penelec.

Turns out, she only owed $284.46 ― still high, but much more manageable.

Mark Durbin, a spokesman for Penelec’s parent company First Energy, said he has never seen a bill for billions of dollars, but told the Erie Times-News the company appreciates Horomanski’s ”willingness to reach out to us about the mistake.”

The multibillion-dollar bill did inspire Horomanski to add an item to her Christmas list.

“I told [my son] I want a heart monitor,” she told the paper.

Accidentally high bills are a shocking part of modern life.

In August 2012, a British woman on vacation in South Wales bought a cheap mobile phone because her own cell couldn’t pick up the local signal.

Thanks to a technical glitch, she ended up being slapped with a bill for more than $42,000.

In July 2012, a bank error caused a Nashville, Tennessee, man to be charged $84,522.54 for a $30 tank of gas.

Good thing he saved the receipt.

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