PayPal to Delco man: We'll donate to charity for you

AFTER A DELAWARE County man garnered international attention when PayPal accidentally credited him $92 quadrillion, the online money-transfer company decided to turn its mistake into a good deed.

PayPal said yesterday that it will donate to a charity of Chris Reynolds' choice.

As the Daily News reported Monday, Reynolds, 56, of Media, a PayPal customer for a decade, opened his monthly email statement last Friday and was shocked to find that his account had been credited $92,233,720,368,547,800.

Being a smart guy, Reynolds figured the astronomical credit was a mistake and logged directly onto PayPal's website, where his account balance read zero.

However, those few moments during which he thought he might have been the world's only quadrillionaire left him feeling charitable, so he decided to donate $30 to the Democratic slate for Delaware County Council that day.

"I was moved to be really generous by good fortune," said the married father of three, who owns Reynolds Ink, a public-relations firm.

Yesterday, in response to the article, PayPal released a written statement saying it appreciated that Reynolds recognized that the account credit was "obviously an error."

"We think it's inspiring that he decided to use this occurrence to donate to a cause he believes in," the statement read.

"And we hope to honor this spirit by donating to a cause of his choice - we've reached out to him to make this offer and to let him know we are grateful that he's a customer!"

Reynolds said he received a phone call Tuesday from a PayPal representative who expressed embarrassment for the mistake and wanted to donate to a charity of his choice.

He declined to name which charity he chose or the exact figure PayPal donated on his behalf.

"It didn't have as many zeroes, but it's a significant donation," Reynolds said.

Meanwhile, Reynolds was besieged with media requests all week, including CNN, the Los Angeles Times and the New York Daily News. Last night, his story was on "NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams."

Despite all the attention, Reynolds said he was most surprised by the way several news organizations - not those named above - had lifted pieces of Monday's Daily News story with little or no credit to the paper.

"The most interesting part of this story, to me, is kind of the decay of copyright," he said.