London Man Receives Gas Bill For $22 Million

A London man was stunned when he received the gas bill for his two-bedroom rented flat - for $22 million (�11 million).

Denis Dixon knew immediately that it was a mistake - as he had already paid the �500 quarterly bill.

"When I phoned British Gas and told the woman at the other end I was going to have difficulty paying my gas bill, she suggested we could come to some sort of an arrangement," he tells a local paper. "She checked the bill and then just laughed, saying she could only apologise."

Dixon has offered to donate �200 to charity if anyone can prove they have received a bigger bill than �11m.

British Gas Business has also agreed to donate �200 to a charity of Dixon's choice for the error.

"Quite clearly, it has been a silly mistake and that bill should not have been sent out," British Gas Business spokesperson Mark Duffell said. "We have apologised to him. We are looking into exactly what happened."

Update:

A reader has written in regarding this story:

I work for a large well known British Utility company and we have accidentally issued a bill for much more than �11m. We have 11 digit account numbers and someone once typed in the customers account number instead of the outstanding balance. The bill was for something in the region of �91,234,589,651.00 (this is not his actual account number).

In true British style, he went to the papers before contacting us in the hope we would write of his bill due to the embarrassment. We apologised and sent his amended bill anyway. This story was in there papers about four/five years ago. I think the London man should be held to his word and made to donate the �200.00 to charity.

We're trying to verify the story and we'll forward it to Dixon once we do, but it sounds like he may want to get his charity donation ready. :)

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