"Endless latte" at coffee shop: Festive gift card makes woman richer than Elon Musk with a quadrillion balance

Imagine you're just popping into your local café for a quick matcha latte, using a £10 gift card from Christmas.No big deal, right? But what if that card suddenly showed a balance bigger than biggest economies, enough to make billionaires like Elon Musk look broke? Sophie Downing, a 29-year-old Nottingham business owner running the Secret Sugar Club hair removal service, thought her Christmas gift card from 200 Degrees Coffee was worth about £10.But on February 12, 2026, while buying a matcha latte at the Flying Horse Walk branch, the till displayed a staggering £63 quadrillion balance - over 100,000 times Elon Musk's $843.4 billion net worth, per Mirror coverage. This means the balance is 670 times the global economy, exceeding the UK's economy by 22,500 times and the US GDP by 2,700 times, according to an LADBible report.The cashier looked baffled, saying, "I've never seen it before, but it's fine for you to keep it," as Sophie recalled, according to UNILAD. She only spotted the full insanity on the receipt: "I thought, 'surely not, that's actually crazy,'" she added.A 200 Degrees spokesperson explained it as an "administrative error," where the gift card's barcode number got entered as the balance instead of the actual £10 value, per BBC News. Sophie tested it again a week later, and the figure barely budged. "The guy at the till was really confused. His face was just like, 'what?'" she shared. Though she could theoretically buy endless coffees, the funds only work at 200 Degrees.Despite the viral hype, Sophie said, "I could go in and clear everything off the shelf, but I don't want to take the mick. It would be better if it was a different gift card," she told reporters."I'm just enjoying the moment of being the richest person in the world on paper while it lasts," she joked to BBC. Social media erupted in praise for her conscience, with memes comparing her "riches" against Musk and asteroid Psyche's estimated £8 quintillion value. No word yet from the café on fixes, but Sophie's stance won hearts globally.