Gareth Hughes, 44, from Hebden Bridge in West Yorkshire, U.K., was one of 74 customers sent one of the erroneous checks by Northern Powergrid.
The energy supplier is in the process of paying out thousands in compensation to customers hit by power outages as a result of Storm Arwen, which hit the U.K. back in November 2021.
Northern Powergrid’s mistake came to light after Hughes tweeted a picture showing he had received a check for £2,324,252,080,110 ($3,141,110,473,664).
“Thank you for our compensation payment @Northpowergrid for the several days we were without power following #stormarwen,” he wrote alongside the image.
“Before I bank the cheque [sic] however, are you 100% certain you can afford this? #trillionpounds”
Hughes also shared the image to Facebook, writing: “I won’t be in work tomorrow as I’ll be busy buying United and doing other stuff that trillionaires do on a Monday.”
His tweet quickly went viral, amassing over 6,400 retweets and more than 54,000 likes. “No wonder our bills are big!” JoeRichLaw joked with johnmichael2 writing: “I would so have banked it.”
Northern Powergrid were among those to respond to the tweet, thanking Hughes for bringing the “oversight” to their attention. Hughes replied: “You might want to check what other payments you’ve made, as I’m aware of at least four other cheques for the same value sent to neighboring properties.”
A similar check was shared online by another Twitter user, Danielle Henderson, who branded the blunder “appalling.”
Northern Powergrid later attributed the mistake to a “clerical error” which impacted compensation claims linked to 74 customers across the Halifax and Newcastle areas.
A spokesperson for the energy supplier said: “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’ checks were stopped so they could not be cashed.
“We have been investigating how this error happened and carrying out checks of previous payments. All indications are that this was an isolated incident.
“We thank those customers who were honest and contacted us and we have been making contact directly over the weekend with all 74 customers affected to make them aware, apologize for the error and reassure them that a correct payment will be issued to them on Monday.”
The mistake comes after Northern Powergrid drew criticism from some customers over their handling of the compensation claims.
Hughes told the BBC he had complained when he was initially sent a check for just £135 after spending more than three days without power as he had been informed he was entitled to more. Though the new check raised a smile he told the news provider he “knew it wasn’t a value that could be realistic.”
Newsweek has contacted Hughes for comment.
In June 2021, a woman in California went viral after checking her bank account only to discover she was $49 billion in debt.
Maddie McGivern was dismayed to find she had a balance negative $49,999,999,697.98 despite having an available balance of $76.28. Thankfully, the error was soon cleared up.
