$8M Revenue Shortfall Blamed on Bad DB Entry

Posted by ryuzaki0 on Saturday February 11, 2006 @02:42AM from the data-integrity dept.

SierraPete writes "Yahoo! News reports that an improper database entry, most likely caused by an external user, has created an $8 Million USD revenue shortfall for a northwestern Indiana county because a house that was supposed to be valued at $121,000 showed a value in the database at $800,000,000. There's no specific suggestion that this erroneous entry was done maliciously, but it is leading to big problems in the local governments as they try to figure out how to drop that much money out of their respective budgets. As an aside, how would you like to be in the homeowner's shoes when he opens up his mail box and finds an $8M property tax bill? I'm sure there was a trip to the emergency room or the dry cleaners involved."

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Simple programming? by Anonymous Coward · 2006-02-11 02:49 · Score: 5, Interesting

Do they not have a trap for super low or high amounts, adjusting these traps over the years as values go up or down?

One would think these simple things are in place.