Zero Dollars and Zero Sense
Lionel Wijesiri
TECHNOLOGY: As computers come to play ever-increasing roles in
our lives, so grows our resentment of them. We fear the thought of
someday falling at their mercy, and the following story expresses this
anxiety.
On Thursday, 24 January 2002, well-known Australian media entertainer
- Derek Guille broadcasted this story on his afternoon program on ABC
radio:
In March, 1999, a man living in Kandos, in Mudgee (NSW Australia)
received a bill for his as yet unused gas line stating that he owed
$0.00. He ignored it and threw it away. In April he received another
bill and threw that one away too.
The following month the gas company sent him a very nasty note
stating they were going to cancel his gas line if he didn't send them
$0.00 by return mail. He called them, talked to them, and they said it
was a computer error and they would take care of it.
The following month he decided that it was about time that he tried
out the troublesome gas line figuring that if there was usage on the
account it would put an end to this ridiculous predicament. However,
when he went to use the gas, it had been cut off. He called the gas
company who apologised 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 them the previous day the latest bill
was yet another mistake, so 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. This bill also stated 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 beat the company at their own
game and mailed them a cheque for $0.00. The computer duly processed his
account and returned a statement to the effect that he now owed the gas
company nothing at all.
A week later, the manager of the Mudgee branch of the Westpac Banking
Corporation called our hapless friend and asked him what he was doing
writing cheque for $0.00. After a lengthy explanation the bank manager
replied that the $0.00 cheque had caused their cheque processing
software to fail. The bank could therefore not process ANY cheques they
had received from ANY of their customers that day because the cheque for
$0.00 had caused the computer to crash.
The following month the man received a letter from the gas company
claiming that his cheque has bounced and that he now owed them $0.00 and
unless he sent a cheque by return mail they would take immediate steps
to recover the debt.
At this point, the man decided to file a debt harassment claim
against the gas company. It took him nearly 2 hours to convince the
clerks at the local courthouse that he was not joking. They subsequently
assisted him in the drafting of statements which were considered
substantive evidence of the aggravation and difficulties he had been
forced to endure during this debacle.
The matter was heard in the Magistrate's Court in Mudgee and the
outcome was this:
The gas company was ordered to:
[1] Immediately rectify their computerised accounts system or show
cause, within 10 days, why the matter should not be referred to a higher
court for consideration under company Law.
[2] Pay the bank dishonour fees incurred by the man.
[3] Pay the bank dishonour fees incurred by all the Westpac clients
whose cheques had been bounced on the day our friend's had been.
[4] Pay the claimant's court costs; and
[5] Pay the claimant a total of $ 1500 per month for the 5 month
period March to July inclusive as compensation for the aggravation they
had caused their client to suffer.
And all this over $0.00!
In the now-vanished world where competent bookkeepers oversaw the
receivables process, this sort of oddity would have been caught before
it was mailed out, and a reversing entry to cancel the charge would be
entered.
In the modern world, statements are all too often automatically
stuffed into window envelopes (by yet more machines!), franked, and
mailed, and accounting personnel think a reversing entry is something
one performs to back into a parking space. |