A Nottingham business owner has become the richest person in the history of the world, but with a twist: she can only spend it on coffee and croissants. Sophie Downing, a 29-year-old owner of the Secret Sugar Club, a hair removal service, received what she thought was a £10 voucher for 200 Degrees Coffee for Christmas. However, when she used it to buy a matcha latte, she discovered the balance was an astonishing £63 quadrillion. That's 63 followed by 15 zeros, or a thousand trillion, or a million billion. While it's not liquid cash, this amount makes her 100,000 times richer than Elon Musk, the closest centibillionaire competitor. The balance is also 670 times the total of the world economy. Ms. Downing found the situation amusing, saying, 'I thought it was really funny. I've never seen anything like that before.' She first used the gift card at the 200 Degrees coffee shop in Flying Horse Walk during her lunch break on Thursday, February 12. The cashier was baffled, and the massive number appeared on the till. He kindly accepted the purchase, saying, 'I've never seen it before but it's fine for you to keep it.' Ms. Downing was initially shocked, but the situation became even more intriguing when she used the card again on February 17 and found the balance still in the tens of quadrillions. 200 Degrees has yet to acknowledge the mistake, and Ms. Downing has no plans to use the card again, suggesting the possibility of a scanning error. She humorously adds, 'Maybe they have scanned the wrong thing. It looks as though they have scanned the barcode which has turned into the balance.' This unexpected turn of events has left Ms. Downing with a unique financial situation, one that she finds amusing and intriguing.
