Strange dates on on Paypal message.

[79ftruck]

Hi,
Today i was paying for a purchase that my other half had made on ebay,the seller only accepted paypal.
As we don't keep funds in paypal i proceeded to e-cheque.
After i confirmed the payment a message at the top of the page said,your payment will clear approximately between 31/12/1969 to 31/12/1969.
I think wonder what is going on here ? so i signed out waited about 10 minutes signed in again & viewed the transaction details through paypal, the dates correct this time so figured it was just a glitch.
This afternoon i was cheching email, paypal email says
 Your eCheque payment is in progress
Thanks for using PayPal. eCheques are not instant payments. The estimated completion date is 1 Jan 1970. We advise sellers not to send items until they receive payment. To view the transaction details, log in to your PayPal account.
What the ?,lol

[*CountessA*]

PayPal does a "back to the future"???

Well, a quick Google   later, and I find that you're not the only person to receive that strange timeframe!

http://aussiebluebirds.com/index.php?PHPSESSID=7upjosdf24cna9rjaia3eqbm07&topic=217.msg22839#msg22839
http://twitter.com/sourcecraft/status/25885995241054209
https://www.paypal-community.com/t5/Buying-with-PayPal/e-cheque/td-p/179404?profile.language=en-gb

[79ftruck]

OK,well it's obviously going to be a waste time contacting paypal.
Just a glitch do you think ?

[*CountessA*]

If I were you, I'd be phoning PayPal even though it seems it's "obviously" a glitch.

Just in case the software has gone berserk...

Do you have PayPal's phone number?

[79ftruck]

Yes, Thanks Countessa will phone them first thing in the morning.

[79ftruck]

Well i phoned Paypal earlier & they said they are aware that some people have received similar email,they don't know why but please disregard the email that states the payment will clear 1st January 1970 as my payment will clear on the 27 January 2011.

[*CountessA*]

It's a bizarre thing... One would expect that a corporation the size of PayPal would have at least some IT department heads to ensure that glitches of this confusing nature don't occur!

Can you imagine the flood of INR disputes potentially arising? "I should have received this 40 years ago - where is it? I want to open a claim!"

[low-enghooi]

If it is programmed in C language or similar language there possibly is buffer overflow problem here when calculating the date. Say an integer data type received a long data.

Microsoft is expert in this buffer overflow problem, they probably produce the most of this.

I am not sure if this is a design flaw in the programming language or the application programmer should take care of this. Anyway a great challenge here for C programmer and this has been a known problem since the day C language was invented.

I have an interesting C language book written by an interesting C programmer detailing some really interesting real life example. Imagine NASA make a mistake in one of their little program. That is not fun.

[*Ubbie Max*]

I wish the glitch could zap into the future. I would patch into the lotto results.

I'd be a billionaire within a month.

[*smee*]

its the millenium bug
tell paypal to contact Smee Enterprises and purchase a pallet of Millenium bug repellant
it comes in aerosol cans $10 a can 24 cans to a box 48 boxes to a pallet $1152 + gst + freight + incidentals

[79ftruck]

I think they need to contact you Smee as they still have'nt sorted it.

Through checkout

7 Feb 2011 16:56:57 AEDT
Transaction ID: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

 Your eCheck payment will clear approximately between: (31/12/1969-31/12/1969).We advise sellers not to post items until they receive payment. Get your item(s) faster by making an [ instant payment ].
 
& after checkout was completed,email from paypal.

Your eCheque payment is in progress
Thanks for using PayPal. eCheques are not instant payments. The estimated completion date is 1 Jan 1970. We advise sellers not to send items until they receive payment. To view the transaction details, log in to your PayPal account.



 
 


 

[*CountessA*]

I suppose I'm not really surprised. Clearly giving the buyer and seller correct and adequate information is not terribly high on the list of priorities.