Time Warner told Ohio man he owed over $16 million for cable service

Most Americans live their lives working hard, supporting themselves and their families, quietly dreading outrageous utility bills, which can be a serious pitfall of life in the poor lane.

But as one man in Ohio learned recently, you can't always take obscene corporate demands seriously.

All Daniel DeVirgilio said he just wanted to watch was the NCAA men's basketball "Sweet 16" series. As he later joked, his cable company somehow decided to charge him over $1 million per team, delivering last week a very unexpected bill of over $16 million.

After the better part of an hour on the phone, Time Warner told the Bevercreek, Ohio resident that his bill was a simple human error -- although the notification he received said they'd attempted to charge his credit card.

“Had I known this I would have bought Showtime,” he told The Dayton Daily News.

Time Warner told the paper that his credit card was not actually charged, and that the system had auto-generated the notification.

"All I wanted to do was watch March Madness," DeVirgilio reportedly said.

The total bill came to just over $16.4 million.

Photo: Flickr commons.