A Pennsylvania woman said her eyes “just about popped out” of her head after she saw her electricity bill — a whopping US$284 billion — just days before Christmas.
Mary Horomanski told The Erie Times-News that the online bill came from Penelec, her electricity provider.
READ MORE: Mistake has woman unknowingly paying neighbour’s hydro bill for 5 years
“We had put up Christmas lights and I wondered if we had put them up wrong,” she told the newspaper.
She explained that the entire bill wasn’t due until November 2018, but the month’s minimum payment was $28,000.
“It was like, well, I guess we have a year to come up with this billion-dollar bill,” Horomanski said in an interview with The Washington Post.
She said her heart was beating fast and that she started to sweat.
WATCH: Woman goes public with jaw-dropping electricity bill to get answers
Thankfully, the multi-billion-dollar bill was a mistake. It was reversed by the company, and it wasn’t certain what exactly caused the massive error.
Internet users compared the bill to items that are actually valued around $284 billion. Like an entire country’s gross domestic product (GDP) — Chile’s GDP is $247 billion.
The bill was supposed to cost $284.46.
READ MORE: Woman receives $11K power bill for condo as if ‘paying for the whole building’
Horomanski said that bill is still more than $100 higher than what it cost in the previous month — but it didn’t seem so bad compared to billions of dollars.
While the bill was a mistake, the woman’s story caught the attention of many people online.
Horomanski said her story likely struck a chord with others, who regularly experience sticker shock from their electricity bill.
WATCH: Albertans getting better idea of how renewable electricity will impact power bills
An Edmonton woman had a similar experience with her electricity bill earlier this year,
Vivian Kwan was charged $11,253.15 to power her 700-square-foot suite.
“That would only make sense if I was paying for the whole building,” Kwan told Global News at the time.
— With files from Global News reporter Emily Mertz