UK 500 postmasters jailed over faulty software

[Richard]

It started in 1999 when a new accounting software system was installed.

Postmasters are the ones in charge of the individual post office branches.

The software was showing that money was missing from the branches,the postmasters were tried and jailed in prison for fraud.

They could not prove that they did not take the money because the postmaster general said the software did not lie.

Flash forward it has been determined that the software was in fact faulty and a $58 million dollar settlement with the postmasters has been approved.

They are also pressing to have criminal charges levied against the software provider because reports have come out by X employees that they knew the software was defective.

The postmasters accused of fraud in the 60 to 70 thousand dollars range were all long term employees,one even had thier baby while in prison.

That is insane when we place technology over guilt or in innocence.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ns-system.html

[Bigb23]

Michigan unemployment agency made 20,000 false fraud accusations – report

Yes - we've been there, done that. And the British were well aware of it.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/dec/18/michigan-unemployment-agency-fraud-accusations.html

[JBMcB]

Software developer here. Here's how it's supposed to work:

1. We install a test environment for a customer.
2. We train the customer on how to use it. Services is knowledgeable enough to show them how to map their existing business processes/accounting into the new software.
3. The customer runs parallel processes for a while, ensuring the new software is working properly.
4. When the customer is ready, they cut over from the old processes/software to the new software. Sometimes this is done gradually, sometimes all at once.
5. They maintain the old processes/software for a period of time as a backup.

Here's how it usually goes:

1. We install the software for the customer.
2. The customer attends half of the required training sessions. They ask for the software to be changed to match what they are already doing [[which is usually not best practice nor industry standard)
3. The customer noodles around with the new software for a couple of weeks, then hard-changes all the employees over to using the new software.
4. The customer logs dozens of tickets only of which, maybe, 5-10% are actual bugs, the rest of which are the result of the customer not understanding how the software works, or complaining that the software doesn't do something it was never meant to do.