The most expensive mistakes

Everyone makes mistakes, but not for each has to pay so dearly. Some random errors could cost more than one million dollars.

Typo, which cost New York more than a million dollars




Error accountant of the Ministry of Education of New York State has led to the fact that the amount earmarked for the development of urban school transportation, doubled. It turned out that one of the words inadvertently accountant appeared superfluous letter, and accounting software could not recognize it. This error has been detected during the audit in June 2006, it led to what has been spent on transport 2, $ 8 million instead of the planned 1, 4 million. City authorities had to refund the difference.

The most expensive in the history of the comma



August 2006, a case of "the most expensive places in the history of Canada." It is a conflict of Canadian companies Rogers Communications Inc. and Aliant Inc. The court ordered the largest Canadian provider of wireless data services Rogers Communications Inc. to pay an additional 2, 13 million dollars Aliant Inc. after termination of the contract between them.

In 2002, between the two companies had signed a contract containing a clause stating that it "shall enter into force on the date of signature and shall remain in force for five years from the date of signing, and then can be extended for five-year periods, unless terminated by either of the party filing of a written notice no later than one year before the termination. " So Rogers believed that until 2007 the contract is indissoluble, and in 2006 it will become clear whether it will be automatically extended for another five years. However, in 2005, Aliant sends a notice to terminate the contract. The stumbling block was the ill-fated comma, because of which the item of the agreement the parties interpreted (in English spelling) in different ways: the representatives of Rogers submitted that the conditions relate only to the additional terms, while representatives of Aliant, based on the punctuation of the English language - how to Additionally, and to the main. The decision was made in favor of Aliant, which won the right to terminate the contract in 2006. This enabled her to significantly increase the fee for their services (to $ 9.60 for each used the tower to $ 28.05), which is why Rogers has lost more than two million dollars - this is the value of one point.

Typo increased the winning amount from $ 1,000 to $ 50,000,000



In July 2007, one of the car dealerships Roswell, New Mexico, issued 50 thousand tickets instant lottery with the main prize of $ 1,000. It was understood that the top prize are 1 ticket out of 50 000. However, when printing of lottery tickets in the printing Atlanta-based Force Events Direct Marketing Co. It was a mistake. The result was that the alleged 50,000 people became happy owners of a prize of $ 1,000. Keenly aware that to pay the sum of $ 50 million is unrealistic, and the kind of company and is not obliged to, dealership invited all won exchange "incorrectly printed" lottery tickets for gift cards of $ 5 Wal-Mart, which cost the company 250 thousand dollars. After the incident, Force Events, to somehow appease disgruntled citizens issued lottery tickets with the grand prize of $ 5,000, after 20 more episodes lottery with the main prize of $ 1,000.

Error Chilean trader $ 175 million



In 1994, because of the Internet made during trading trader State copper company of Chile - Codelco mistakes (instead of when to profitably sell it unprofitable to buy shares), the company and, consequently, the whole country has lost $ 175 million. At that time, this amount was equal to 5% of the country's GNP.

Random error, which cost the Japanese bank $ 340 million



Because of the random error of the trader Mizuho Securities (brokerage unit of the second-largest Japanese bank Mizuho Financial Group Inc.) in early December 2006, the shares of the recruiting company J-Com Co. It was sold at 1 yen, instead of 610,000 yen. The misunderstanding that has occurred in part because the computer system of the Tokyo Stock Exchange did not respond to attempts to cancel an erroneous bid cost the trading house at 40, 5 billion yen (340 million. Dollars) and was an example of probably one of the most expensive in the world of typos.