Computer Billing Hell
submitted by Sylvia Key

In March 1992 Andy Mikula living in Dickson City near Scranton, Pennsylvania, 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 Andy 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 by return post.

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 Andy 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 canceled.

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, Andy Mikula’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 Andy 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 by return of post they would be taking steps to recover the debt.

Andy, who had been considering buying his wife Eileen a computer for her birthday, bought her a typewriter instead.