In March 1992 a man living in Newtown near Boston Massachusetts
received a bill for his as yet unused credit card stating that he owed
$0.00. He ignored it and threw it away.
In April he received another and threw that one away too.
The following month the credit card company sent him a very nasty
note stating they were going to cancel his card if he didn't send them
$0.00 by return of post. He called them, talked to them, they said it
was a computer error and told him they'd take care of it.
The following month he decided that it was about time that he tried
out the troublesome credit card figuring that if there were purchases
on his account it would put an end to his ridiculous predicament.
However, in the first store that he produced his credit card in =
payment
for his purchases he found that his card had been canceled. He called
the credit card company who apologized for the computer error once
again and said that they would take care of it.
The next day he got a bill for $0.00 stating that payment was now
overdue. Assuming that having spoken to the credit card company
only the previous day the latest bill was yet another mistake he
ignored it, trusting that the company would be as good as their
word and sort the problem out.
The next month he got a bill for $0.00 stating that he had 10 days to
pay his account or the company would have to take steps to recover the
debt.
Finally giving in, he thought he would play the company at their own
game and mailed them a check for $0.00. The computer duly processed
his account and returned a statement to the effect that he now owed
the credit card company nothing at all.
A week later, the man's bank called him asking him what he was doing
writing a check for $0.00. After a lengthy explanation the bank
replied that the $0.00 check had caused their check processing
software to fail.
The bank could not now process ANY checks from ANY of their
customers that day because the check for $0.00 was causing the
computer to crash.
The following month the man received a letter from the credit card
company claiming that his check had bounced and that he now owed them
$0.00 and unless he sent a check by return of post they would be
taking steps to recover the debt.
The man, who had been considering buying his wife a computer for her
birthday, bought her a typewriter instead.
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