40 Of The Most Costly Mistakes Companies Have Ever Made

Due to a comma error, the submarine was so heavy that it was feared that it would no longer be able to emerge from the underwater world. Fortunately, the problem was resolved.

He wanted to offer a share for 610,000 yen on the New York Stock Exchange, but instead offered 610,000 shares for 1 yen. Obviously the investors wanted to take advantage of the situation – better be careful next time!

The band signed to EMI a few months later and became one of the best-selling bands of all time, with record sales of $ 50 million. Decca Records Missed the Big Lot!

In this classic example, Yahoo owned 30 percent of the Chinese tech company Alibaba in 2005, but sold half of its stake for $ 7.6 billion. That’s a huge sum, but today Alibaba is valued at around $ 84 billion!

We know it sounds a little complicated – and it is – so let’s get to the point for a moment. Basically, a judge agreed with the legal team representing the drivers and ordered the company to pay them $ 5 million for overtime. Basically, a company lost $ 5 million just because of a stupid comma – spelling matters!

Toronto to Cyprus tickets were supposed to be $ 3900, but the airline mistakenly offered the flight for $ 39. 2,000 people rushed to the offer, and society was kind enough to grant all tickets.

In one scene, actor Kurt Russel grabs actress Jennifer Jason Leigh’s guitar and smashes it, only Kurt wasn’t informed that the real guitar should be exchanged for a replica for the smash part. Let’s put it this way, Jennifer’s reaction in this scene is pretty real.

In 2000, the controlled fire became uncontrollable and the flames spread everywhere for about a month, causing $ 1 billion in property damage. At least no one died in the tragedy.

An inexperienced restorer thought he should tape it back on without anyone noticing. Fortunately, epoxy glue lasts quite a long time and wasn’t the worst choice.

The botched fresco was mocked and some people even named the painting Ecce Mono (See the Monkey). Surprisingly, however, it has since become a major tourist attraction.

Back in the 1970s, the film studio was reluctant to spend so much money that Lucas gave up his merchandising rights as part of a deal. Imagine getting paid for every lightsaber and droid toy sold around the world!

The good news is that the two pieces appear to be in line so only one ramp had to be put in place to connect them. Let’s hope no one was fired for this mishap.

The destruction cost one worker’s life and $ 800,000 to repair. At least this incident brought the persistent problem of building supervision in China to the public.

Apparently the bridge was not strong enough to hold the 160,000 people who crossed it at once. Much more money was spent and the bridge finally opened two years later.

Alexander II didn’t think too much of the cold state and sold it to the US for $ 7.2 million without knowing how rich it was in oil and gold. Today Alaska’s oil and gas reserves alone are worth $ 200 billion. Wrong step, Russia!

Wayne drew the famous Apple logo, but due to personal conflict, Wayne sold his 10 percent stake in 1976 for only $ 800. Knowing that Apple is valued at over $ 1 trillion today, Wayne may have sold his shares a little early.

In hindsight, that might have been a great idea, but we all know what happened. Blockbuster laughed, left the meeting, and eventually went bankrupt while Netflix’s market value skyrocketed, currently valued at $ 15.8 billion. It’s not that fun now, blockbusters.

In 1999, Google (then, funnily called Backrub) entered the market and Excite considered buying it but decided not to because Google wanted Excite to only use its technology. Google is currently valued at around $ 167 billion, so Excite may have made the wrong decision here.

The person who forgot to proofread an application cost the state of New Jersey a large federal grant for educational reform. By writing the years 2010-2011 instead of 2008-2009, New Jersey lost $ 400 million. Damn!

Howie Hubler (a bond dealer at Morgan Stanley) bought risky loan default swaps for $ 2 billion while selling collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) for $ 16 billion. The CDOs weren’t safe, and when the market crashed, Howie Morgan Stanley cost billions of dollars.

Despite doing well for several years, Chrysler suffered a setback in 2006. Despite the introduction of ten new vehicles, the auto company lost $ 1.5 billion and filed for bankruptcy in 2008.

The Texaco drill hit a salt mine, creating a huge hole that swallowed the lake and created a tremendous vortex. The damage cost $ 44.8 million, but at least no one was injured.

Fortunately, the pilots managed to get off the jet before the crash and the sensors reported airspeed, altitude and flight path errors. It was later discovered that too much moisture had penetrated the machine due to heavy rain. Crazy!

The Titanic hit an iceberg on its first voyage, which sank the ship and carried 1,500 people with it. In addition, the loss of the ship cost about 7.5 million dollars (which corresponds to about 150 million euros in today’s currency).

And as you’d expect, the repairs were extremely expensive – the project cost $ 135 million to work on!

While it might be argued that there may have been a fire, it seems like far too much foam to suggest someone accidentally did it. Unless it was done on purpose to simulate clouds!

When the lower car flooded, it was pulled up and smashed the upper car in the process. A destroyed car is bad enough – imagine the cost of repairing both of them!

This small car drove way too close to the school bus and the bus obviously didn’t know that anyone was behind it because as it reversed it crushed the small car. And the shape of the silver car only made things worse.

The truck was loaded with a crane and as you can see the crane split this house in half. Let’s just hope no one was in when it happened.

We’re not sure which genius thought it would be a good idea to leave this Mercedes this close to the water, but lo and behold, the tide came and the car half sank in the sand. Next time you better park in the parking lot when you go swimming!

With the tangled and muddy wires, it is pretty clear that the internet cables are not working and cannot be made working anytime soon. What do you think how much it will cost to fix the cables?

Since these towers are extremely heavy, we’re not really sure how that happened, but either way, it’s going to be a massive cleanup project and cost a ton of money. Maybe next time people should be more careful.

Unfortunately, a maintenance worker accidentally activated a Vulcan cannon, and the F-16 happened to be on the runway at the time. The fighter jet caught fire and you can guess the rest.

The guy who did this wanted to sanitize his money, but microwaves sure aren’t the way to go. What a huge waste of money!