Cigarettes, newspaper billed at $2,323.49

WINNIPEG, Manitoba, July 9 (UPI) -- A Canadian man in Winnipeg is fighting a credit card bill from a 7-Eleven store of $2,323.49 for two packages of cigarettes and a newspaper.

Last week, trucker Glenn Babcock made the purchase and then pointed the error out to the clerk, the Winnipeg Sun reported Wednesday. He said the clerk told him because it was more than $200, he couldn't reimburse him.

"When I spoke to the Visa company they had said they'd gladly reimburse me but they had needed 7-Eleven to do their part first," Babcock told the Sun.

He said he called 7-Eleven's customer relations department in Dallas about what should have been a $23.49 bill, and it was Tuesday before they opened a file on his complaint, the Sun said.

In the meantime, Babcock's credit card has been put on hold and he had to take a day off work to man the phones, he said. That also meant paying another driver $400 to take his shipments for the day.

"I'm stuck somewhere in the Twilight Zone," Babcock said. "I'm amazed, in this day and age of computers, that it takes a week to get this sorted."