In Brief: Bank One Foul-Up Upsets 2,000 Texans

About 2,000 Bank One Corp. customers in Texas had a rude surprise in their mail this month.

The company erroneously sent out overdraft notices to customers who had not overdrawn their accounts. The mishap was related to year-2000 testing of systems, but the mistake was a human error, not a computer mistake, said spokesman John Russell.

Mr. Russell said the company has been running many year-2000 tests and last month tested its system in Texas that produces overdraft notices. The company used 2,000 random customer names and printed out mock notices.

The test was successful, Mr. Russell said. The problem, however, was "someone put them in the mail," he said. "That person won't do that again." A procedure has been set up to avoid repeating the mistake, he said.

Mr. Russell said the company learned of the mistake when customers called to complain.

Based in Dallas, Bank One Texas has 750,000 customers and deposits of $16 billion. It is the third-largest bank in Texas after BankAmerica Corp. and Chase Manhattan Corp.

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