Man Sent Two Trillion Pound Cheque After Being Without Power For A Few Days

A man has received a compensation cheque for more than £2 trillion after being without electricity for a few days.

Gareth Hughes, from Hebden Bridge, was left without power during Storm Arwen but it seems to have all been worth it if this payment is anything to go by.

Taking to Twitter to share his surprising news and to also check whether it was all too good to be true, Gareth wrote: "Thank you for our compensation payment @Northpowergrid for the several days we were without power following #stormarwen.

"Before I bank the cheque however, are you 100 percent certain you can afford this? #trillionpounds."

Alongside the message was a picture of a letter he'd received which had a cheque attached to the bottom for... deep breath: two trillion three hundred and twenty four billion two hundred and fifty two million eighty thousand one.

According to the paper, that's written out numerically as: £2324252080110. And no, I don't know where to put the commas so we're going without any.

It seems Gareth wasn't the only person to receive a hefty sum of money, or at least a cheque for a hefty sum of money.

He commented on the tweet, warning Northern Powergrid: "You might want to check what other payments you've made, as I'm aware of at least four other cheques for the same value sent to neighbouring properties."

Someone else's tweet was highlighted which shows another person that received a cheque but this time for one trillion five hundred and eighty billion nine hundred and fifty six thousand one hundred and four pounds.

Others were quick to pass on their own suggestions to Gareth, with one saying: "Bank it for 1 hour, at 3 percent interest and you can return the principal, and keep £7,954,482 in profit." Not bad, not bad.

Another added: "Bank it.. then tell them they have to submit refund requests on writing and wait 28 days for it to be processed.. and pay a 1 percent admin fee .. sorry it's company policy. Computer won't let you bypass it."

And a third commented: "Bank it. Use it to fight them through the courts as they demand the return. Use the rest to pay for the utility bills of your neighbours."

Northern Powergrid also replied to Gareth's tweet, calling his situation an 'oversight', they said: "Thanks for bringing this to our attention. Please DM us your contact details including address and postcode so we can correct this oversight."

In a statement to LADbible, a spokesperson for Northern Powergrid said: "As soon as we identified the clerical error, which was caused by the electricity meter reference number being incorrectly quoted as the payment sum, we ensured all 74 customers’ cheques were stopped so they could not be cashed.  

"We have been investigating how this error happened and carrying out checks of previous payments. All indications are that this was an isolated incident and we have taken appropriate steps to ensure that this does not reoccur.  

"We thank those customers who were honest and contacted us and we have been making contact directly over the weekend with all 74 customers affected to make them aware, apologise for the error and reassure them that a correct payment will be issued to them on Monday."