Cashless payment system breakdown at The Great American Food and Music Fest
The Great American Food and Music Fest at Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, CA turned out to be a fiasco for the organizers and many of the visitors earlier this month. As Mercury News reports:
Saturday’s concert at the Shoreline Amphitheatre — the second problem-plagued event at the Mountain View venue in less than a month — also left organizers with more than heartburn. They are scrambling to deal with thousands of complaints from customers who had to stand up to five hours in line for food and endure a meltdown of a high-tech electronic bracelet pay system.
Numerous factors contributed to this becoming an overall bad experience for a lot of visitors. Larger-than-expected numbers of people started coming in early in the day. Food vendor lines were often very long and poorly organized. Vendors did not have enough food. The electronic payment system failed.
The organizers are now struggling with the aftermath, issuing apologies and refunds. Apparently the event will receive a second chance next year.
Utility Billing Mistake in Palo Alto
Mercury News reports that 830 customers were double-charged for their utilities in May:
The mistake came as the utilities department switched to a new billing system that is part of Palo Alto’s broader SAP network, said Tom Auzenne, assistant director of utility costumer support services.
The double-billing was not a computer glitch but a human error, he said. It affected some “bank draft” customers who give the city their bank account numbers so their payments can be withdrawn automatically each month.
Yes, there is definitely human error here. It is worth noting though that similiarly to the recent utility billing case in Texas, customers with automatic bill pay transfers were affected by this.
Delayed robbery investigation in Bakersfield
Bakersfield Now reports that an apparent error in a Kern County Sheriffs Office new computer system is blamed for a delayed investigation of a robbery.
The residents called the sheriff’s office and filed a report in January when the robbery took place, but nothing was ever followed up on. Sr. Deputy Michael Whorf says that’s because there was an error in a new computer system.
Sheriff’s officials have now put a detective on the case. Officials are also checking for other glitches in the system and say they are confident in the new way of handling reports.
The residents are probably glad that they followed up with the police regarding the status of the investigation. This does make one wonder though how many other cases were affected here and how often police investigations are in general prevented due to issues like this.
