Please be responsible for my money.

July 4, 2005 11:45 PM

Y2K strikes! In 2005!
posted by jragon (16 comments total)

Sandy Spring Bank, serving you since 30 BC
posted by anarcation at 11:57 PM on July 4, 2005

I might retire in 2035, I got 1930 years to fix my pension deficit. Cool
posted by stFire at 12:01 AM on July 5, 2005

Let's see...I started my account in 105. With interest I believe you guys owe me...
posted by crashlanding at 12:07 AM on July 5, 2005

I don't get it.
posted by jonson at 12:08 AM on July 5, 2005

This isn't a Y2K thing. This is most likely a stupid coding error.

The language they are using to generate dynamic content most likely includes a date function that returns a year offset by 1900. If they were using perl, for example, the localtime() function returns the year 2005 as 105. From the perlfunc manpage:

$year is the number of years since 1900. That is, $year is 123 in year 2023.

posted by rajbot at 12:10 AM on July 5, 2005

Seriously, I don't get it - where are you guys seeing the 105? This is what it looks like on my screen.
posted by jonson at 12:18 AM on July 5, 2005

I saw the 105 date, then the correct 2005 date with a picture of different people. Did someone email the bank?
posted by Cranberry at 12:29 AM on July 5, 2005

It's a javascript bug, but seems to work in IE6.

ssnb.js fills "mydate" (which is in an iframe-loaded page that rotates randonly) with a formatted version of the date. The formatting assumes that new Date().getYear() returns a proper date. It does on IE, but not in any other browsers (you need to add 1900).

That's why sensible people use getFullYear() :)
posted by Lionfire at 12:43 AM on July 5, 2005

What really inspires my confidence is the disclaimer at the bottom of the page related to UVEST financial services:

*Not FDIC Insured *No Bank Guarantee *Not a Bank Deposit
*Not Insured by any Government Agency *May Lose Value
posted by rhiannon at 12:44 AM on July 5, 2005

The page doesn't load correctly for me on Opera, so I guess there's no chance I'd want to bank their. Why can't banks create a standards compliant website that can be used by all browsers? It seems like many complaints about alternative browsers is their inability to use online banking sites that are coded for IE only.
posted by gyc at 1:15 AM on July 5, 2005

Where do you want to go today? - ?105 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
posted by Lanark at 2:27 AM on July 5, 2005

Was this really worth a front page post?
posted by mediareport at 3:56 AM on July 5, 2005

Metafilter: Celebrating the deprecated method
posted by furtive at 3:58 AM on July 5, 2005

Lanark: classy find!
posted by moonbird at 4:16 AM on July 5, 2005

why are those depositors so scary=looking?
posted by ParisParamus at 4:39 AM on July 5, 2005

I hate threads like this. I go to the link, stare and stare at it until my eyes bleed and still I haven't a clue what it's about. I don't see any date problems. I don't see anything odd at all.
posted by Decani at 5:59 AM on July 5, 2005