Moving Decimal Bug Loses Money 420
mario.m7 writes "Poste Italiane, the Italian postal service, suffered yesterday from an abnormal computation in ATM and credit card operations, since the decimal comma was not taken into account. The whole sum was therefore multiplied by 100, resulting in a 115,00 Euro transaction being debited as 11.500 Euro! Thousands of accounts are deep in the red and locked (link pumped through translator), so that no more operations are possible. Poste Italiane is gradually recovering the problem, fixing the error and re-crediting the sum debited in excess. Consumer associations have offered support to clients in case this lasts longer and causes damage."
Obligatory Office Space (Score:5, Funny)
I always do that, I mess up some mundane detail!
God Bless the USA! (Score:5, Funny)
Our Comma to separate numbers and periods to indicate decimal are far superior to your backward period to separate numbers and comma to indicate a decimal number!
1,00st post! (Score:4, Funny)
1,00st post!
Re:For the most part. (Score:4, Funny)
It's like the little penny tray. The pennies are for everyone. And we're just taking fractions of a penny here.
Re:God Bless the USA! (Score:5, Funny)
I think you mean "God Save the Queen". We (the British) gave you the correct method for decimals before we decided to let you have the place. You've managed to pick up a few bad habits from the French, such as driving on the right.
But apart from that, you're doing quite well.
(For the benefit of Australians, this is humour, not flamebait.)
Re:For the most part. (Score:1, Funny)
You need a number over 2^32 FOR AN ATM?!
Is this related to the need in Zimbabwe for ATMs to distribute $1,000,000,000,000 bills?
Re:God Bless the USA! (Score:4, Funny)
I think you mean "God Save the Queen". We (the British) gave you the correct method for decimals before we decided to let you have the place. You've managed to pick up a few bad habits from the French, such as driving on the right.
But apart from that, you're doing quite well.
(For the benefit of Australians, this is humour, not flamebait.)
Oh be quiet, you whinging pommy bastard.
Re:For the most part. (Score:5, Funny)
They got it backwards. They're supposed to take fractions of a penny from many thousands of people, not many thousands of pennies from each person.
Bizzarro Superman (Score:3, Funny)
It's just like in Superman III, but backwards!
Re:God Bless the USA! (Score:4, Funny)
I am black on the right side. Loki is WHITE on the right side, all of his people are white on the right side!
Re:1,00st post! (Score:3, Funny)
Dear Mr. Anonymous Coward,
Your thousand separator is one off. Seeing your post is not the first post, I must assume you meant 100st post, because it will be dropped around there soon enough. In either case, you failed.
Best regards,
Your loving wife
Re:You mean 11,500 Euro (Score:5, Funny)
It's still a decimal point. Europeans just put a little tail on it to be fancy.
Re:God Bless the USA! (Score:5, Funny)
Australians seem to be doing even better than Americans, then. They still drive on the proper side of the road, although they measure distances in kilometers rather than miles as god and the queen intended.
Well at least Australia is doing better than Canada. Those poor sods drive on the wrong side *and* use the metric system on their roads.
Re:You mean 11,500 Euro (Score:3, Funny)
Re:1,00st post! (Score:2, Funny)
I must assume you meant 100st post
That's about 630kg.
Pretty heavy for a post.
Re:1,00st post! (Score:4, Funny)
Whoosh 3,0
Re:God Bless the USA! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:God Bless the USA! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:For the most part. (Score:1, Funny)
I prefer plus as a decimal separator and a minus as a list separator.
49000+50-20000+95-2095+99
Re:Happened to me recently (Score:5, Funny)
I made a similar mistake recently... I made a (.NET) data entry software
Don't you mean ,Net?
Re:God Bless the USA! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:God Bless the USA! (Score:5, Funny)
I think I read somewhere that the Australians would change from left to right in 2012. They would start with all the bigger vehicles like buses and lorries and if that turns out OK, it'll be mandatory for all motorized vehicles from 2015
Re:You mean 11,500 Euro (Score:1, Funny)
You are partly right. A standard is better. Using SI (metric) yet?
Then again I disagree about commas and periods. In Finland we use empty spaces between words and commas to separate parts of independent clauses from dependent clause. As you can see that makes sense.
BTW. from wikipedias SI article:
Spaces may be used as a thousands separator (1 000 000) in contrast to commas or periods (1,000,000 or 1.000.000)
and
The 10th resolution of CGPM in 2003 declared that "the symbol for the decimal marker shall be either the point on the line or the comma on the line."
Therefore I declare anyone to need to start using empty space as thousand separator and comma as decimal marker.
Re:You mean 11,500 Euro (Score:4, Funny)
Re:International Bureau of Weights and Measures (Score:3, Funny)
There, fixed that for you.