Interesting story-only posted part of it--will get url in later--gotta go

Bank Rate Monitor War of the words: Are Y2K 'compliant' systems 'ready'? Adding to the anxiety over the Y2K problem is that experts can't agree on the meaning of "compliant" and "ready." The conflict paves the way for lawsuits and leaves companies and consumers in the dark. By Laura A. Bruce, bankrate.com

When a clerk at Produce Palace, an upscale grocery store in Warren, Mich., tried to process a customer's credit card, the cash register crashed.

Sometimes, just one credit-card swipe could make all 10 of the store's registers crash.

Havoc at Register No. 1 Angry and embarrassed customers walked out of the grocery store, leaving loaded shopping carts at the checkout counter. It doesn't take much to imagine the frustration level of store managers.

What was causing such havoc? Credit cards with an expiration date of 2000. The problem went on for months. Store employees had to hand-write charges for customers who wanted to use credit cards with the "evil expiration date."

The store had to take the customers' word that their credit was good. Clerks handed out roses to unhappy customers who had to wait while charges were hand-written.

In what is believed to be the first Y2K-related lawsuit, Produce Palace sued Atlanta-based TEC America, a leading supplier of information systems and equipment, including electronic cash registers.

Produce Palace had shelled out $100,000 for the 10-register system in April 1995. According to the lawsuit, Produce Palace was promised that the TEC system would meet their needs better than any of the products of TEC's competitors and that they'd have a system free of problems.

Instead, the grocery store says it bought a system that couldn't process credit cards that expired on, or after, the year 2000. The system was down 150 of the first 500 days that it was online. The lawsuit was recently settled for $260,000. Produce Palace attorney Brian Parker calls it a "nuts-and-bolts warranty litigation case."

-- lowprofile (more@stuff.com), February 26, 1999

Answers

I looked around but couldn't find this. Anyone have the url while we are waiting for lowprofile to come back? If it checks out I will post it to the Failures List.

-- Rob Michaels (sonofdust@net.com), February 26, 1999.

When our "expires 00" credit cards arrived last year, we had problems at several places--the solution was to hand-punch the info and put "99" as the expiration date! I hope all those problems have been fixed--one of our cards expires in February 00, so I guess we'll find out next month. . . Our supermarkets' automatic credit card transaction thingies seem okay now.

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), February 26, 1999.

Story is from Summer/Fall 1998. errrrr Spring 1998. Da SITE: http://news.propertyandcasualty.com/litigation-computer/19980505- 61.html

DA LINX Chuck

-- Chuck, night driver (rienzoo@en.com), February 26, 1999.

This was posted Feb.26,1999 on MSN Money Central.

http://moneycentral.msn.com/articles/banking/basics/3098.asp

-- lowprofile (more@stuff.com), February 26, 1999.

Thanks. I will update the Y2K Failures list with this one.

-- Rob Michaels (sonofdust@net.com), February 26, 1999.

I bet that in eleven months from now when cash registers start crashing by the dozens in every state people are going to just push their loaded shopping carts out the door instead of leaving them. It would be interesting to see how the store managers would deal with that kind of problem.

-- (Lancelot @ tavern link.com), February 26, 1999.

Lancelot: in a word, "security guards". I'll bet that'll be a growth industry, post-Y2K.

-- scooter (store@squirrel.com), February 26, 1999.