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Advanced number theory
Just had to share this one with everyone:
A friend of mine has just moved his credit card from one provider to another. He’s paid off the balance on the one he’s moving from and wrote to them to ask them to close the account. They sent him a final bill – a few pounds worth of interest charges – which he paid, and they duly sent him a statement of account that showed his balance was £0.00.
What they didn’t send him was confirmation that the account was now closed, so he wrote to them again asking them to confirm in writing that the account was indeed closed (he’s a bit of a completist when it comes to things like this). This week he received a letter from them saying that while they had received his request to close the account, they couldn’t do so unless it had “a nil balance”. Helpfully, the letter indicated what the balance was: £0.00.
Now, when I was at school £0.00 was the same as nil but that’s obviously not the case anymore. But what I’m not sure of is whether they think he owes them money or whether they owe him.
Of course, this is actually another example of the way that the software has taken over the asylum. Somewhere there’s an algorithm that doesn’t look to see if an account balance is actually zero, just whether it’s less than or greater than zero. Then the human that sits in front of the screen just prints the letter when the computer tells them to and off it goes.
It’s going to be interesting to see how they explain the difference between £0.00 and nil.
Comments
One Response to “Advanced number theory”
Wolfs Helpers
You’ll love this! This morning I received a new card together with a statement showing £0.02 balance, for an account I cancelled in 2004.
Gotta love these credit card companies!