'Please save us from impending doom' - Leeds university students receive '£19million gas bill'

Viktorija Kiselyte, aged 21, and her four friends use bill splitting app Huddle to divide up monthly bills at their shared student flat in Hyde Park.

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The app works by taking monthly bills and splitting them into regular contributions from each person in the house and then passes it to the utility firm. so that bills are consistent and paid on time by everyone in the house.

But users have to submit meter readings to check that their usage matches up with their direct debit - and it was here where the megabucks gas bill came about.

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The girls accidentally added an extra digit to the reading, resulting in a £19million bill showing up on their gas account.

Viktorija and her friends then set up a fundraising page on Gofundme.

It said: "Five poor, helpless, defenseless students through simple error owe the gas company £19million.

"A simple mistake - entering our initial gas meter reading wrong - has led to us being in debt. Please give generously to save us from our impending doom.

"Any money actually donated will be given to a local homeless charity."

Thankfully, the error was corrected after a quick call to Huddle, who fixed the account back to a few hundred pounds.

A spokesman for the firm said: "Where this figure came about is when the meter reading was submitted and it looks like an extra digit was added.

"They called us and we spotted the mistake and the account is correct now."