Interesting People mailing list archives
IP: Y2K Glitch Hits Some Credit Cards
From: David Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>
Date: Fri, 7 Jan 2000 17:15:30 -0500
-----Original Message----- From: Dana Blankenhorn [mailto:dfblankn () bellsouth net] Sent: Friday, January 07, 2000 4:41 PM To: farber () cis upenn edu Subject: Re: Y2K Glitch Hits Some Credit Cards Is this really the merchants' fault? Merchant terminals come from banks, not software companies. Maybe the terminal says "Nabanco" (that's the name of a processor) and sometimes it has the name of a bank, like "Citibank." But merchants don't know ICVerify from Adam's off ox. The merchant contact is the bank. The bank gets software from a vendor (IC Verify) in bulk and contracts with a processor (whose name may go on the terminal), then has the device installed. The software is inside the hardware, it's not something you can update from a store. So how is the merchant supposed to know whether he has a Y2K problem, let alone fix it? How can this problem be their liability? Yet in the press releases (http://www.cybercash.com/cybercash/company/news/releases/2000/00jan6y2kstat ement.html) and the NY Times story, it's all shunted off on the merchant. Very interesting.
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