It's true that the money.co.uk team spend significantly more time online than the average person, but when one of my colleagues received a broadband bill that ran into the £100,000s even we were shocked!

We've read about people who've received monstrous broadband bills, we've even covered their stories in our news; but this time the drama hit a little closer to home.

One of my colleagues, a member of the money.co.uk technical team in fact, recently received a bill from his broadband provider demanding the princely sum of £363K.

What's more, as the direct debit payment he'd previously set up was (rather unsurprisingly) declined by his bank, he was sent an email threatening disconnection if he didn't pay up!

Fortunately, once he became aware of the issue he did manage to get things straightened out relatively quickly.

A call to customer service confirmed that he hadn't gone crazy with the downloads; his extortionate bill was simply down to human error.

It turned out his account number had been entered in place of the amount he owed!

Safe to say that once the issue was brought to his broadband provider's attention, his bill was recalculated and the matter resolved....

....although their automated system did continue to send him letters chasing him for payment for a while!

The demand:

"YOUR SERVICE IS ABOUT TO BE DISABLED

"We have been unable to collect payment for your Eclipse services using your Credit/Debit Card as your card company has rejected our request for payment.

"Rejected amount £363XXX

"In order to avoid disconnection please pay within the next 48 hours at www.eclipse.net.uk click on ‘My Eclipse’ and use the ‘Pay my Bill Now’ option. Once your payment has been authorised you need to set up a new Direct Debit by following the Online instructions.

"If your service is disabled and will only be restored during the office hours of Mon - Fri 9.00am to 5.30pm, after payment is received."