Thousands of Morgan Stanley credit card customers were shocked this week to find the bank had multipled their debt by a factor of 100.

Register reader Gordon Sinclair discovered the decimal point in his numbers had been shifted two places by an IT blunder. Instead of £149.49, Morgan Stanley demanded payment on a debt of £14,349.00.

Gordon said: "On the plus side, they are making another £775,651 available to me in further credit!"

The Mirror reports that 15,000 customers were affected by the blunder. Morgan Stanley will be issuing corrected statements, along with letters coughing to the gaffe.

But at least Morgan Stanley's mistake didn't force customers to pay for their dinners by washing dishes. ®

Related stories

• Billing provider behind Fon de-cloaks, attacks MVNO enterprises (27 October 2006)
• Letters HSBC's cash crash forced me to work off my dinner (18 October 2006)
• Swiss banks broke privacy laws over SWIFT transfers: data chief (17 October 2006)
• UK.gov may allow data sharing on 40 million bank accounts (16 October 2006)
• Exclusive HSBC customers in cash machine hell (16 October 2006)
• MBNA 'eyes Egg' (6 June 2005)