Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Moving Decimal Bug Loses Money

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the test-your-code-people dept.

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."

25 of 420 comments (clear)

  1. Obligatory Office Space by dkleinsc · · Score: 5, Funny

    I always do that, I mess up some mundane detail!

    --
    I am officially gone from /. Long live http://www.soylentnews.com/
  2. God Bless the USA! by jellomizer · · 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!

    --
    If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    1. Re:God Bless the USA! by benwiggy · · 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.)

    2. Re:God Bless the USA! by Anonymous Coward · · 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.

    3. Re:God Bless the USA! by domulys · · Score: 4, Funny

      It is obvious to the most simple minded that Loki is of an inferior breed.

      I am black on the right side. Loki is WHITE on the right side, all of his people are white on the right side!

    4. Re:God Bless the USA! by Kartoffel · · Score: 4, 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.

    5. Re:God Bless the USA! by Mister+Whirly · · Score: 2, Funny

      So, do you ever get an American quarter in your change and think "Sweet, an American quarter". Until you try to use it in a vending machine.

      --
      "But this one goes to 11!"
    6. Re:God Bless the USA! by ShatteredArm · · Score: 2, Funny

      We can't afford to change all the signs. We spent all our wealth fighting marijuana, keeping out Mexicans, and building public basketball arenas.

    7. Re:God Bless the USA! by haruharaharu · · Score: 4, Funny

      India drives on the left? I thought they just drove down the middle.

      --
      Reboot macht Frei.
    8. Re:God Bless the USA! by IrquiM · · 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

      --
      This is blinging
  3. 1,00st post! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    1,00st post!

    1. Re:1,00st post! by sopssa · · Score: 2, 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

    2. Re:1,00st post! by cheftw · · Score: 2, Funny

      I must assume you meant 100st post

      That's about 630kg.

      Pretty heavy for a post.

      --
      Always back up, never back down. ---- Think you're cool 'cos your uid is prime? Take mine, modulo the one digit integers
    3. Re:1,00st post! by v1 · · Score: 3, Funny

      Whoosh 3,0

      --
      I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
  4. Re:For the most part. by imgod2u · · Score: 3, Funny

    It's like the little penny tray. The pennies are for everyone. And we're just taking fractions of a penny here.

  5. Re:For the most part. by Anonymous Coward · · 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?

  6. Re:For the most part. by qwijibo · · Score: 4, 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.

  7. Bizzarro Superman by Kartoffel · · Score: 2, Funny

    It's just like in Superman III, but backwards!

  8. Re:You mean 11,500 Euro by Kartoffel · · Score: 5, Funny

    It's still a decimal point. Europeans just put a little tail on it to be fancy.

  9. Re:You mean 11,500 Euro by auric_dude · · Score: 2, Funny

    Could be worse, could have still been using Italian Lira then the numbers would be really big http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_lira#Banknotes

  10. Re:For the most part. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    I prefer plus as a decimal separator and a minus as a list separator.
    49000+50-20000+95-2095+99

  11. Re:Happened to me recently by eallanjr · · Score: 5, Funny

    I made a similar mistake recently... I made a (.NET) data entry software

    Don't you mean ,Net?

  12. Re:You mean 11,500 Euro by Anonymous Coward · · 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.

  13. Re:You mean 11,500 Euro by julien+dot · · Score: 4, Funny

    I hope you realize you still got the spelling wrong... it is "voilà" not "voilá".

    --
    Julien C.
  14. Re:International Bureau of Weights and Measures by elronxenu · · Score: 2, Funny

    And from the 7th General Conference [bipm.org] which was held in 1 948:

    There, fixed that for you.