comp.risks reports possible Y2K $891.24 payment to consumer
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RISKS-LIST: Risks-Forum Digest Friday 3 September 1999 Volume 20 : Issue 56
FORUM ON RISKS TO THE PUBLIC IN COMPUTERS AND RELATED SYSTEMS (comp.risks)
ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy, Peter G. Neumann, moderator
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This issue is archived at <URL:http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/20.56.html>
and at ftp.sri.com/risks/ .
[...]
Subject: Tandy bug?
The following story was recently forwarded to the EGR mailing list. I
wonder if anyone knows anything more about it? L.
2) William Slattery shares the following personal experience. All you
reporters out there might take special note.
Y2K is here!
I got a check in the mail last week from Tandy Corporation:
$891.24. A nice chunk of change that there is no way in the world
they could owe me.
Here is what I think happened. Because of my odd habit of paying
off most of my bills to the nearest ten dollars OVER what I
actually owe (it makes the math easier when I balance my
checkbook), I had a small credit on my Radio Shack credit card.
Their computer looked at the end of the billing period, which
fell after the infamous 9/9/99, and said Wowza!, this guy has had
a five dollar credit on our books since January 1 of 1900. Since
company policy is to pay off credits on inactive accounts, I'm
going to calculate the interest and cut this guy a check.
So here we are. I phoned Tandy headquarters (817-415-3011) and
talked with the person in charge of this sort of thing, Lisa
Mapes. I told her there was no way Radio Shack could owe me 900
bucks because I hadn't spent that much money in their stores in
my whole life. I told her I thought they had a Y2K problem. She
laughed at me. It was not a good laugh. It was the "you're so
ridiculous it's hilarious" kind of laugh. Ms. Mapes told me to go
ahead and cash the check. Radio Shack really owes me this money,
she says, even though they are completely unable to explain WHY
they owe me the dough.
I told reporters at The New York Times and National Public Radio
that all their stories warning about Y2K were finally starting to
pay off. I figured that after years of running Chicken Little
stories -- the sky is gonna fall! the sky is gonna fall! -- it
would make a good little story when the first chunks of sky
actually started landing on people's heads. Apparently not. They
seem profoundly uninterested.
To a mind as comprehensive as yours, I am sure the potential for
gaining fabulous wealth is immediately apparent. The key to
getting rich off Y2K is to open numerous small accounts under
assumed names, lodge small credits in them, and wait for the
checks to roll in. If I'd thought of it sooner -- and could get
rid of this pesky conscience -- I'd be a rich man today.
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[...]
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Date: 23 Sep 1998 (LAST-MODIFIED)
From: RISKS-request@csl.sri.com
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