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I’m sure we’ve all been there before. We’re out with friends having drinks or a good meal and having a good time. Then when the bill comes at the end it shocks us all. Sure we didn’t expect the bill to be cheap but this is a whole other thing.
So I did some research online and put together a list of either the most expensive (at least based on what I could find) in its class that I could find.
Here goes.
1) The Most Expensive Restaurant Bill – $52,221.09
The Most Expensive Restaurant Bill goes to billionaire and Chelsea club owner Roman Abramovich at a restaurant in New York called Nello’s. The bill actually came to $47,221.09 but the billionaire added a $5,000 tip on top of that.
A quick search also reveals a Malaysian named Jonathan Bong who claimed he has been overcharged by the famous Original Nasi Kandar. A piece of squid apparently costs RM60!
2) The Most Expensive Drinks Bill $498,000.
When doing research on this one name popped up. A 23 year old named Alex Hope who made a lot of money off the financial markets and in one night spent $308,000 on drinks just to celebrate.
Then I came across this list. And I found two more who outdid Alex Hope. One is our fellow Malaysian Jho Low and the other who topped everyone is Charles Shaker who spent $498,000 in one night.
Charles Shaker was at the Billionaire Club in Monaco during the Grand Prix when he spent that money and created quite a scene. A scene worthy of its record breaking bill so much that it stopped all music and the DJ congratulated him.
Leonardo DiCaprio was apparently in the club that night too.
3) The Most Expensive Medical Bill – $250,000 (over 5 days)
A British man named Peter Cousins on holiday in the US was somewhere in the vast reaches of the Nevada desert when he got a heart attack.
He had to air lifted from the desert into the closest hospital and undergo heart surgery. He spent a total of 5 days in the hospital before he was discharged. He was expecting a large bill but not that large… and the latest update is that he’s still negotiating with the hospital to try to reduce the amount owed or he’ll never be able to pay since he had no insurance.
How many of us can afford to pay that much?
When Fighter got sick I ended up having to pay a bill of RM98K and that was enough to make me feel a huge dent in my pocket. Shorty had insurance but the insurance didn’t cover the medical condition Shorty had.
4) Most Expensive Electricity Bill – RM 58,000
The honors of this bill belongs to a 46-year old factory worker in Tawau. He had very normally received bills of RM150 every month for his electricity usage until one day he got this big one. Things he said he used in his factory were iron beds, burning machines, car washing machine and a cutting machine. No time machines or tesla coils were found in the premises.
It is was later suspected that the numerical data shown on the electricity meter was wrongly keyed in that results to a shocking RM58,000 bill.
5) The Most Expensive Mobile Phone Bill – $218 trillion
Back in 2006, Malaysian man Yahaya Wahab received a bill from TM for RM 806,400,000,000,000 ($218 trillion) when he disconnected his late father’s phone line. At the time of writing this article, he wasn’t sure yet if it was a mistake but I’m pretty sure that it was. I don’t recall TM making revenues of $218 trillion that year. If it did, it would by far be the company with the largest revenue in the world. Did I say BY FAR?
That’s insane. I’ve been there. In the earlier days I’ve data roamed and totally underestimated the cost of that, landing myself a huge bill. Fortunately my telco at the time (again I’ve used Maxis for many years) was able to cap the amount I had to pay.
Sometimes out of realization we may be overpaying for features and services that we probably don’t need. Especially when most users opt for digital biling (e-biling) for convenience sake, we don’t know how much call time, text messages or data we have used or overused. This could result to the probability of having to sign up for a more-expensive-than-we-need mobile plan.
I wish telcos would really do something about these insane shocking bills that we sometimes get from time to time. I’ve been fortunate in the past that I’ve managed to negotiate discounts off the total bill but I can’t imagine what it must be like if a telco refused to waive a part of the bill off for you.
One of my friends actually lent his Filipino helper a phone for her to call home. In a span of a month or so she ended up racking up a bill of RM30,000 or so. I’m not sure what the conclusion to that was but I know he was really stressed out when it happened.
So there you have it everyone. May you never get any of these outrageous bills (unless you totally intend to spend that money like maybe Charles Shaker) or if you have encountered with any nasty bill surprises, drop me a comment below. I’d love to hear some of your stories, if not the outrageous ones.
Timothy Tiah – Co-Founder of Colony, Kuala Lumpur Co-Working Space