diff --git a/libraries/liblutil/utils.c b/libraries/liblutil/utils.c
index 089519e745..769a4db6bc 100644
--- a/libraries/liblutil/utils.c
+++ b/libraries/liblutil/utils.c
@@ -640,8 +640,8 @@ scale( int new, lutil_int_decnum *prev, unsigned char *tmp )
 		}
 	}
 
-	out = tmp + prev->bufsiz - 1;
-	for ( i = 0; new ; i-- ) {
+	out = tmp + prev->bufsiz;
+	for ( i = -1; new ; i-- ) {
 		new += out[i];
 		out[i] = new & 0xff;
 		new >>= 8;