Zurich authorities have apologized to city officials after a technical problem that caused workers to be paid double wages.
So now local officials are scrambling to recall about 175 million francs ($200 million) that were mistakenly sent on Monday, February's payment day.
Employees can't keep the money physically, and local officials are trying to devise a streamlined process so the 30.000 affected workers can pay it back easily.
All this was blamed on a technical error at the state-owned Zuercher Kantonalbank, which manages the city's salary payments.
The bank itself said that Swisscom AG's faulty software caused the problem.
"Swisscom is aware of the seriousness of this incident and apologizes for the inconvenience caused," the software company said in a statement shared by the bank.
The windfall caused consternation among workers who called offices to ask what had happened to their wages, according to Swiss newspapers.
Still others poked fun at it, citing it as a "compensation for inflation". They even asked for it to be repeated.
