She Became One Of The World’s Richest People – But There’s A Catch

A woman has become the wealthiest person in the history of the world, in theory, but can only spend her money on two things.

Sophie Downing, from Nottingham, was given what she thought was a voucher worth £10 for 200 Degrees Coffee for Christmas. But when using it to purchase a matcha latte last week, she found the balance was much higher – in fact, it was more than £63 quadrillion.

That’s 63 followed by 15 zeros, or a thousand trillion. It means that in theory she is 100,000 times richer than her closest competitor – the somewhat impoverished Elon Musk – but she can only spend the money on coffee and croissants.

Put into perspective, the balance is also 670 times the total of the world economy, but Ms Downing is keeping her feet on the ground. “I thought it was really funny. I’ve never seen anything like that before,” she told NottinghamshireLive.

The 29-year-old first used the gift card at the 200 Degrees coffee shop in Flying Horse Walk, Nottingham, during her lunch break on February 12, and that was when it became apparent that something was amiss with the balance.

“The guy at the till was really confused. His face was just like what?” she remembered. “This massive number came up on the till. He said, ‘I’ve never seen it before, but it’s fine for you to keep it’. I didn’t clock it until he gave me the receipt. I thought, ‘surely not, that’s actually crazy’.

When Ms Downing, the owner of the hair removal company Secret Sugar Club, used the gift card a second time on Tuesday, she discovered the amount remained in the tens of quadrillions.

Since then, she has decided it is best not to keep using the card, although she says that 200 Degrees has not raised the issue with her. She joked that she could have gone in and bought everything from the shop.

“Maybe they have scanned the wrong thing. It looks as though they have scanned the barcode, which has turned into the balance,” she said. “I could go in and clear everything off the shelf, but I don’t want to take the mick. It would be better if it was a different gift card.”

This was clearly a technical error, which could happen to any one of us. At least she can have a coffee and a croissant every day now because the voucher credit will last for an extremely long time – it’s a pity she can’t cash it up for actual money, but then she could always invite Elon Musk out for a coffee.