Family Electricity Bill: $284,460,000,000

Imagine opening your electric bill and seeing a figure of $284,460,000,000 under the amount owed. Pennsylvania's Mary Horomanski had exactly that experience, which she recollects to GoErie.com with a priceless quote: “My eyes just about popped out of my head,” says the 58-year-old resident of Erie. “We had put up Christmas lights and I wondered if we had put them up wrong.” As a spokesman for utility Penelec explained, however, it was merely a comically disastrous decimal error. The actual bill: $284.46. (More utility companies stories.)