I’m listening to this converstation between a Verizon and a customer who was quoted 0.002 cents per KB for data rate and was charged 0.002 dollars per KB for his usage.
[…]
Customer: Do you recogise that there is a difference between one dollar and one cent?
Manager: Definately.
C: Do you recogise that there is a difference between half a dollar and half a cent?
M: Definately.
C: Then do you therefore recogise that there is a difference between point zero zero two dollars and point zero zero two cents?
M: No.
C: No?
M: I mean there is no point zero zero two dollars.
[…]
M: What would a point zero zero two dollars look like? I’ve never heard of point zero zero two dollars.
After listening to this sort of thing for 15 minutes, I came to realisation that all these people, from the reps all the way to the floor manager, all think that any unit of money less than 1 dollar is said with the suffix “cent”. Thus $3 is said ‘three dollars’ and $0.02 is ‘two cents’ and $0.002 is some sort of bizarro number so it is read as ‘point zero zero two cents’. Because is is certainly less that a dollar, it must be in cents.
