Chris Michaud
New York - The much-feared, but thus-far toothless Y2K computer bug has taken a small bite out of at least two of life's essential industries - gourmet chocolates and videotape rentals.
In Colonie, New York, outside the state capital Albany, a customer at the Super Video store got the shock of the young century on New Year's Day when the charge for renting The General's Daughter came to $91 250 (R547 500).
OK, it was a day late, but still.
While fears of worldwide problems from the Y2K computer glitch, in which computers mistakenly read the year 2000 as 1900, have proved unfounded, the store's computer was charging customers as though they were returning videos 100 years late.
"The clerk and I were shocked, and then zeroed out the late charge and gave the customer a free video rental and wished him Happy New Year," said Terry Field, owner of the store.
Field said he stayed up past 1.30am on New Year's Eve running tests to make sure his computer system was Y2K compatible, but hundreds of his customers nonetheless faced nearly six-figure charges for video rentals.
"We had fun with them when they came in, telling them they owed us $91 250, and will that be cash or credit," Field said, adding that while most people were amused, one worried about being charged despite being given a receipt showing it was only a millennium mistake.
Meanwhile, clerks at Godiva chocolate shops, normally an envied position surrounded as they are by $30 per pound confections, struggled to ring up transactions at cash registers that were not co-operating on Sunday.
"When the stores opened the cash registers were not operating," said Godiva spokesperson Jerry Buckley. "A few hours later we identified the issue, which had to do with reading the calendar file at the mainframe," Buckley said.
The problem, which Buckley said affected Godiva stores across the United States, was eliminated in the "vast majority" of stores by the day's end, and from all stores by Monday.
Employees continued to sell the pricey chocolates by conducting manual transactions, and the glitch had "no significant impact" on business, the spokesperson said.
Of course, the timing could have been much worse. After a month of gorging on high-fat party foods and imbibing copious amounts of caloric alcohol, who buys chocolates on the day after New Year's anyway? - Reuters