The firm Northern Powergid has made at least 74 of its users the richest people in the world, sending them cheques for a ridiculous sum of up to £2.3 trillion ($3.1 trillion). The money was meant to be compensation for those Britons who suffered from blackouts due to powerful winds, caused by Storm Arwen in November 2021.
The firm was notified about the mistake after a user shared his cheque online, showing an insane sum of £2,324,252,080,110 ($3.14 trillion).
"Thank you for our compensation payment, Northern Powergrid, for the several days we were without power following Storm Arwen. Before I bank the cheque, however, are you 100% certain you can afford this?", the message read.
Twitterians immediately hit the comments section, joking around and offering a few options on what to do in such a situation.
The energy firm said the customers' energy meter numbers were accidentally used instead of the amount payable and promised to issue a correct payment on Monday.
"As soon as we identified the clerical error, which was caused by the electricity meter reference number being incorrectly quoted as the payment sum, we ensured all 74 customers' cheques were stopped so they could not be cashed", a spokesperson for Northern Powergrid said. "We have been investigating how this error happened and carrying out checks of previous payments. All indications are that this was an isolated incident".