Elecronic Telegraph

ISSUE 1679 Thursday 30 December 1999

Computer backdates accounts by 100 years By David Millward

Millennium candle scheme loses its sparkle

ACCOUNT holders in one of Britain's largest independent building societies became the latest victims of the Millennium bug.

Statements giving the interest earned and the amount in their accounts on Jan 7, 1900, were sent to several hundred of the Portman Building Society's 1.5 million customers, all holders of a specialised Step Up Bond.

The glitch was the latest to emerge in the run-up to the New Year, with some computers already struggling to cope with the transition to 2000.

A spokesman for the Portman said that the problem had been identified during tests before Christmas: "We are up to speed on the issue. We have been working on the Y2K issue since 1996 with the target of making our core system compliant by the end of 1998, which we achieved." The company said only a small minority of customers had been affected.

A spokesman for Action 2000, the Government's task force on the Millennium bug, said: "We always said that there would be problems and that one should not wait until midnight on December 31 for them to appear."

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), December 30, 1999