PayPal accidentally credits man $92 quadrillion, making him richer than world's richest Carlos Slim

NEW YORK: Oops! PayPal, the online money- transfer company, has accidentally credited a man in Delaware a whopping $ 92,233,720,368,547,800, making him by far the richest man in the world.

Chris Reynolds, 56, said he was shocked when he received his monthly statement via e-mail from PayPal last week, with an ending balance of $ 92 quadrillion, over a million times richer than the world's richest man, Carlos Slim.

The fortune of Slim, a Mexican telecommunications mogul, would pale in comparison at a mere $ 73 billion.

"I'm just feeling like a million bucks," Reynolds was quoted as saying by the Philadelphia Daily News. "At first I thought that I owed quadrillions. It was quite a big surprise."

Reynolds said he has been a PayPal customer for about 10 years and uses it to buy and sell items on eBay, including vintage car parts. He said he usually spends no more than $ 100 a month using PayPal.

After absorbing the initial shock, Reynolds logged on to PayPal's site and saw that his balance was listed there as $ 0.

If the prodigious account credit were true, Reynolds - who with his wife owns Reynolds Ink, a public-relations firm - said he would pay down debts with the money.

"I'm a very responsible guy," he said. "I would pay the national debt down first."

PayPal has admitted the error and offered to donate an unspecified amount of money to a cause of Reynolds' choice.

"This is obviously an error and we appreciate that Mr. Reynolds understood this was the case," CNN quoted PayPal as saying in a statement.