The Unused Credit Card
In March 1992 a man living in Newton 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.
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
cancelled.
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 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.