Woman left shocked after receiving $402 billion electricity bill

We all dread the bills, but this woman faced something beyond any of our worst nightmares. Photo / 123RF

Everyone dreads getting their electricity bill, particularly around the holiday season when you have had Christmas lights up, relatives staying with you and are already pretty low on cash after buying everyone presents.

Hoping for the best but expecting the worst is probably a method that many use when opening that bill to find out what the damage is.

But nothing could have prepared one woman in the United States for the shock of receiving a US$284 billion (NZ$402b) electricity bill.

Mary Horomanski from Erie, Pennsylvania told GoErie that her eyes "popped out of her head" as she was met with the massive balance of US$284,460,000,000 owing to her electricity provider, Penelec.

The 58-year-old woman's first thought was that she had put her Christmas lights up wrong and that was the reason for her eye-watering bill.

"When you see something like that, your heart starts beating, you break out into a little sweat, like, 'What on earth just happened?'" she told The Washington Post.

"We had Christmas lights outside, but we don't have the '[National Lampoon's] Christmas Vacation' lights," Horomanski said.

"And I'm looking at my Christmas tree, and I'm like, no, that wouldn't have caused it."

There was some good news though — if you could call it that — as Horomanski's statement said that she didn't have to pay the entire amount until November 2018. Rather, her minimum payment for December was $28,156 ($AU36,469).

"It wasn't due until November of 2018. It was like, well, I guess we have a year to come up with this billion-dollar bill," she said.

Once she had recovered from the initial shock, Horomanski contacted her son who got in touch with Penelec who, thankfully, reassured him that it was an error.

Horomanski's actual bill was $284.46 ($AU367), with Mark Durbin, a spokesman for Penelec, saying he wasn't sure what had caused the error.

"I can't recall ever seeing a bill for billions of dollars," GoErie reported Durbin as saying. "We appreciate the customer's willingness to reach out to us about the mistake."

According to Horomanski the whole ordeal gave her an idea about what she wanted her son to get her for Christmas.

"I told him I want a heart monitor," she said.