They're here (Y2k problems)!
Sept. 8 was not a good day for Tom Roskop and his wife, Lorna.
That was the day the Olathe couple got an urgent phone call from their
credit card company.
"Did you place a $15,000 charge with an insurance company?" the credit
card representative asked Roskop, an information services consultant
with Johnson County.
"Heck no," Roskop responded. "We never spend that much money with a
credit card."
But the credit card company showed that at 4:28 a.m. the day before,
$15,000 was drawn as an automatic debit from Roskop's account. Four
minutes later, his insurance company pulled an additional $2,800 from
the account.
Roskop had been bitten early by the year 2000 bug. And it hurt.
Roskop's insurance company had installed new software that was ready to
handle the year 2000 situation. But the company's computers garbled date
entries and miscalculated insurance premiums.
It got worse.
By now, the couple had exceeded their credit limit. The company agreed
to extend their $19,000 cap so they could purchase two plane tickets for
Lorna's parents to visit from Europe. But the airline saw a "caution" on
the couple's account and in the confusion billed them twice.
"It's been a real hassle. And when we got our credit card statement it
was well into the five figures," Tom Roskop said. "Now I don't know if
this is going to affect our credit rating. It's like a domino effect."
Disappearing lien
Consider if you will George & Bill's Appliance Service, a business in
Springfield. The store, and former owner John Gillespie, have already
entered the year 2000 zone.
On July 25, 1996, a UCC statement was filed showing that the store had
borrowed money from Metropolitan National Bank of Springfield and
secured the loan with collateral. A UCC statement is a filing under the
state's Uniform Commercial Code, and is used by lenders when considering
whether to lend money to a business or individual.
The year 2000 bug, however, made the lien disappear -- at least on the
computer records maintained by the state. Instead of expiring on 2001,
documents on file with the Missouri secretary of state's office said the
lien expired in 1901.
"The effect of the error could be significant to anyone doing business
with the debtor," said James L. McNish, a lawyer and executive director
of the Kansas City Year 2000 Coalition.
Because the UCC statement erroneously shows that the lien on collateral
used by George & Bill's Appliance for a prior loan expired 97 years ago,
a lender considering another loan to the business could end up making a
loan without appropriate collateral, McNish said. |
