WHAT HAPPENED: In August 1996, Steve Case posted a note to AOL’s six million subscribers, starting with the words “Wednesday was a bad day for me.” Mr. Case went on to blame his bad day on some “high capacity switches within the local area network.”

It is unknown why or how these switches brought AOL down, but the time in question was nearly 18 hours and 45 minutes. AOL subscribers were issued a refund for a one-day prorated amount of their monthly fee. This should have come to around $.66 per person ($19.99 divided by 30 days) paid to six million people for a total loss of $3.9 million in reimbursement. A bad day indeed!

SOURCE: CNN
COST: $4,000,000 ($.66 average loss per subscriber + cleanup effort)
REPUTATION DAMAGE: Medium
OTHER FACTORS: Millions of grandmothers couldn’t pass along chain letters.
TOTAL DAMAGE: 8/10

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