2000 `BUG' MAY NOT BITE; CREDIT CARD FIRMS, BANKS SAY `00' WON'T AFFECT OPERATIONS.

Byline: Gregory J. Wilcox Daily News Staff Writer

In September of last year, the drivers at Bardwell's Florists Inc. headed out on their deliveries with new company gasoline credit cards bearing an expiration date in 2000.

What happened next illustrates both the bad and the good of the approaching millennium.

``The driver came back and said the credit card doesn't work at the pump. It wasn't reading the double zero,'' recalled Jocelyn Paris, one of the owners at the small, family-run business in Sun Valley. ``So we went back a couple of days later and everything was fine.''

And that is how some major credit card companies maintain the changeover will go at midnight Dec. 31, 1999, as calendars in a multitude of computers began showing three zeros.

In other words, companies like Visa USA, Bank of America and American Express are not bugged by what is being called the ``millennium bug,'' and credit card holders shouldn't be either, they say.

Here's the problem: There are a lot of computer systems in use, especially older ones, that can't figure out whether the number ``00'' refers to 1900 or 2000. If they decided that ``00'' was 1900, a multitude of transactions could be derailed because of expired credit cards that aren't really expired.

Visa USA said it began addressing the problem posed for credit card transactions back in 1994. Today the company estimates that terminals that account for 99.8 percent of the transactions nationwide are capable of accepting cards with dates reaching beyond 2000.

``Visa and its members developed a comprehensive action plan to achieve compliance across the board,'' said a company spokeswoman, who did not want to be identified.

Two years ago, the company issued 150,000 test cards to determine how payment terminals would respond to the new dates. Some Visa employees actually took the cards on shopping sprees.

``The results overall have been favorable, and today many financial institutions are accelerating their (card) reissuance plans,'' the spokeswoman said.

If a terminal rejected a card, the problem was typically solved in about two weeks, she said.

During the last two weeks of February, 6 percent of Visa card transactions were conducted by cards dated 2000.

``It's a non-event, absolutely,'' the spokeswoman said of the date change.

American Express, which has about 42 million cards in use worldwide, is taking a more cautious approach.

``We are ready to issue the year 2000 cards, but we have not done it yet,'' said company spokeswoman Molly Faust. ``We are still testing the point-of-sale infrastructure worldwide.''

The company will decide on a card release date once the testing is complete.

Neither Visa nor American Express would say how much money is being spent to solve the problem.

For Paris, the flower shop owner, the problem is indeed a non-event now.

``I know that the credit card I carry for Chevron has a double zero, but it's worked fine, even though I was a little nervous the first time I tried it,'' she said.

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PHOTO (Color) Sun Valley florist Jocelyn Paris says one of her drivers had a problem with a company gasoline credit card because it expires in 2000.

David R. Crane/Daily News