UK Power Refunds: Halifax & Newcastle Postcodes Receive 13-Figure Sums

[anorlunda]

I would like to share this, just because it is so funny.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-tyne-60369098

Northern Powergrid is paying tens of thousands of pounds to customers hit by days of outages in November.
But a number with Halifax and Newcastle postcodes received cheques made out for 13-figure sums.
Northern Powergrid said a clerical error was to blame.

If any PF members got this refund in the mail, please let us know.

 

[nuuskur]

Are we in the early 20th century or am I crazy?

 

[PeroK]

I would like to share this, just because it is so funny.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-tyne-60369098

View attachment 297333

If any PF members got this refund in the mail, please let us know.

It's interesting that the system has no fail safe to prevent excessively large cheques being printed. A cheque for, say, £20,000 might be more problematic, as it would be harder to detect after the event. And could be cashed.

 

[anorlunda]

Are we in the early 20th century or am I crazy?

Worse, it's the UK.

UK friends please forgive me. That was not deserved, but I just couldn't resist the temptation.

 

[Frabjous]

Maybe they devaluated their currency post Brexit?

 

[Office_Shredder]

It's interesting that the system has no fail safe to prevent excessively large cheques being printed. A cheque for, say, £20,000 might be more problematic, as it would be harder to detect after the event. And could be cashed.

What makes you think these couldn't be cashed?

 

[PeroK]

What makes you think these couldn't be cashed?

I doubt that Northern Powergrid has 2 trillion pounds in its account.

 

[anorlunda]

I doubt that Northern Powergrid has 2 trillion pounds in its account.

And especially not 2 trillion pounds per customer.

 

[StevieTNZ]

I wouldn't mind that much money!

 

[jbriggs444]

I wouldn't mind that much money!

Just put it into my interest bearing account for a few minutes, please.

 

[Office_Shredder]

And especially not 2 trillion pounds per customer.

Seems like the bank's problem when the check bounces :)

 

[sysprog]

Why would the character string 'trillion' be available to the program? Would 'octillion' be available too? What's up with that?

 

[jbriggs444]

Why would the character string 'trillion' be available to the program? Would 'octillion' be available too? What's up with that?

If one is writing a generic routine to convert a 64 bit signed integer scaled by a factor of 100 (hypothetically) to a text string, then one would want to go up to quadrillions. It is someone else's job to sanity-check the numbers.

 

[sysprog]

If one is writing a generic routine to convert a 64 bit signed integer scaled by a factor of 100 (hypothetically) to a text string, then one would want to go up to quadrillions. It is someone else's job to sanity-check the numbers.

Way back when ('80s) I wrote a program that included printing a word version of counting numbers, and it stopped at 'ten thousand' $-$ in the US, for a bank, that number triggers a lot of reporting requirements.

In the '90s I did data security work for a major bank that did DP (data processing) for over 700 other banks, and I can say with confidence that their automated systems at that time could not have written a check with the word 'billion' or the word 'trillion' on it $-$ the word 'million' presented the greatest lexical order of magnitude available for such a purpose.

I acknowledge that some general-purpose routine could go into 'trillion' or 'quadrillion'; however, 'risk management' routines should/would flag such an egregious amount, and because the words for an amount on a check are supposed to be a validator for the digits, it is not reasonable for a programmer to allow 'billion' or 'trillion' in an automated check printing routine.

 

[anorlunda]

The article said that the root of the error was that the power company mixed up the meter serial number field with the money amount field. If they did that, then maybe the sanity tests would have looked at the wrong field. We'll never know for sure.

 

[anorlunda]

Why would the character string 'trillion' be available to the program? Would 'octillion' be available too? What's up with that?

Never underestimate programmers.

http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/33/7#subj1 by Steve Bacher <sebmb1@verizon.net>
Common Lisp, for example, has the numeric-to-English-output feature built in
to the standard format function.I wrote code to implement this in the Lisp
system that I built for the IBM mainframe in the 1980s, so I know how it
would work. Once you have established the algorithm to handle thousand,
million and billion, it is fairly straightforward to extend that to trillion
and up. My code was written to handle amounts up to a vigintillion [?],
with little effort.

He expanded my vocabulary too -- vigintillion !

 

[Frabjous]

Never underestimate programmers.He expanded my vocabulary too -- vigintillion !

Are you a 63 or 120 person?

I was surprised to find different naming systems of numbers in English.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/number#table
Check out the above-one-million section.

 

[anorlunda]

Are you a 63 or 120 person?

What’s up with different naming systems of numbers in English?
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/number#table
Check out the above-one-million section.

From Encyclopedia Britannica
https://www.britannica.com/topic/large-numbers-1765137
The American system of numeration for denominations above one million was modeled on a French system, but in 1948 the French system was changed to correspond to the German and British systems.