Computer bug arrives early

Thursday 08 January 1998 01:02 GMT
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The Millennium computer bug arrived two years early in a furniture store - prompting calls for industry to learn from the incident and take the issue more seriously.

A customer at a branch of Ikea who tried to pay for goods using a credit card with a 00 expiry date found that the machine used to read the card could not cope. NatWest, supplier of the machine, said the incident was not serious because it was one of fewer than 100 out of 170,000 terminals nationwide which would suffer the problem. Keying in the card data, rather than swiping it in, would get round the problem.

Don Cruickshank, of Action 2000, the Government-backed group set up to encourage businesses to tackle the problem, said: "This is exactly why we are pressing everyone to get to grips ... as soon as possible ... Everything must be checked."

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