Nottingham customer briefly shown 63 Quadrillion Gift Card balance after till error
A Nottingham woman was handed a receipt that showed a 63 Quadrillion Gift Card balance after a technical administrative error at a 200 Degrees coffee shop, briefly making her the "richest woman in the world" on paper. The mistake, caused when a gift card number was entered into the wrong part of the till rather than the card's value, produced an implausibly large remaining balance while she paid for a matcha latte with what she believed was a £10 voucher.
200 Degrees and the 63 Quadrillion Gift Card receipt
A spokesperson for 200 Degrees said the error was an administrative or technical mistake: the gift card number, rather than the gift card value, was entered into the wrong part of the till. As a result, the printed receipt suggested the customer had more than £63 quadrillion remaining, though the customer was charged exactly what she should have been and the gift card retained its true balance after the purchase.
The barista handed the customer the unusual printout as a souvenir and then issued a correct receipt showing the actual value on the card.
Sophie Downing and the matcha latte
Sophie Downing, 29, who runs the Secret Sugar Club hair removal service, had gone into the Nottingham branch intending to buy a matcha latte with a voucher she believed to be worth around a tenner and which she had received as a Christmas pressie. Staff at the till appeared confused when the massive figure appeared: one remarked, "I've never seen that before. " Downing said she sent the receipt to her partner and found the situation "hilarious, " and that she treated herself to one more drink with the card.
After using the card a second time and seeing the astronomical number again on a receipt, she said she would not continue to use it and that she was "never going to take advantage. " She also said she would have preferred a £63 quadrillion gift card for the supermarket and declined to clear the shop shelf, saying she did not want to "take the mick. "
Wealth comparisons with Elon Musk and national economies
The implausible balance sparked viral comparisons to global fortunes and economies. Elon Musk is valued at about $843. 4 billion (roughly £624 billion), which is more than 100, 000 times smaller than a balance of more than £63 quadrillion. The figure was also compared with the size of the UK economy—around £2. 8 trillion—by a factor of 22, 500, and with US GDP—about $31 trillion (roughly £23 trillion)—by a factor of 2, 700. The hypothetical sum was noted as more than 670 times the total of the world economy, and was still smaller than a separate, reported estimate of the value of the asteroid Psyche at £8, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000.
Downing pointed out practical limits: the gift card can only be spent on coffee and croissants, so the printed fortune could not be used to buy a car, a home or to solve global problems.
Staff reaction, shop statement and unanswered threads
Staff confusion at the till and the souvenir receipt prompted amusement among those present. The 200 Degrees spokesperson set out the cause-and-effect chain: entering the card number in the wrong till field produced the erroneous balance on the receipt, but the transaction and stored value remained correct. At the same time, another account noted that the coffee shop had not publicly acknowledged the mistake, leaving some questions about wider shop communication unresolved.
What makes this notable is how a routine data-entry slip—entering a card number in the wrong field—can generate a headline-grabbing figure and immediate viral reactions, while having no material effect on the underlying transaction or the customer's actual funds. The incident combined human curiosity, a souvenir receipt and clear technical explanation, and concluded with the customer keeping to a personal decision not to exploit the error.
