Man hit with 4.5t-yuan phone bill mix-up

A MAN in western China's Shaanxi Province was taken aback when he received a phone bill that amounted to almost 4.5 trillion yuan (US$608.65 billion) due to a possible computer mistake.

The man, surnamed Yang, got the astonishing bill on Friday in Xi'an City for his little smart phone after he failed to pay a previous bill, the Tianjin-based Enorth.com reported today.

"The bank staff told me there was something wrong with their computer system so I gave up and chose to pay the bill another day," Yang told the Website.

He went to the bank again yesterday morning and successfully paid the 30-yuan bill, the report said.

However, he was soon handed a much bigger one. It said he owed 4,503,601,774,848.05 yuan, according to the report.

Yang was nervous after seeing the bill and returned to the bank again yesterday afternoon to check his telephone account. The incredibly huge bill was simply gone, the report added.

Bank employees said the huge bill may have been caused by a computer mistake and that Yang's balance was indeed zero, said the report.