I inferred the headline to mean what it actually did, and was surprised to find comments here like yours. I would even argue that is the true literal meaning.
The fact that it caused riots was especially a giveaway. If Pepsi had actually paid out after making their mistake, why would there be riots? Yes I can imagine situations (e.g. they only paid out after there were deadly riots) but it still leads you to the right interpretation.
BTW I agree that your example is a $20 typo, but that seems unrelated. I would still call it a $20 typo if you then didn't cash in that cheque.
Taken a whole, I can see what you mean about the article title. I think this is a just bad title, but titles are hard (:
> I would still call it a $20 typo if you then didn't cash in that cheque.
Interesting. To me calling something a "$XX [typo|mistake|error|etc.]" means that the typo/error/mistake resulted in a loss of $XX. Any other way to read that feels confusing.
The fact that it caused riots was especially a giveaway. If Pepsi had actually paid out after making their mistake, why would there be riots? Yes I can imagine situations (e.g. they only paid out after there were deadly riots) but it still leads you to the right interpretation.
BTW I agree that your example is a $20 typo, but that seems unrelated. I would still call it a $20 typo if you then didn't cash in that cheque.