I do not have a humor category, but if I did this BBC story would surely go there. Nice example of POS control failure.

Ten friends found the abusive and sexually-explicit message on their bill at Joe Delucci’s Italian restaurant in Bird Street, Lichfield, Staffordshire.

Gives new meaning to the term “receipt”.

Ms Watkin said: “I couldn’t believe it. The bill read ‘fish cakes’, which one of us had for a starter, and it was written right above it – absolutely disgusting language.

Fish cakes for £4.95? Disgusting. Oh, I mean disgusting language, indeed!

Joe Delucci’s owner Mr Langsdon said the message had been meant to be seen only by kitchen staff and he did not know how it ended up as an item on the receipt.

He said: “That shouldn’t come out on the bill, so we’ve got to find out what’s gone wrong there.

I see. The problem is that the system was designed so staff could to enter messages into the register and have them seen only by the kitchen staff. Clearly, then, this expletive message went to the wrong place.

But then I have to ask if “Suck My Dxxk Fxxk Face” is really a message for which the kitchen staff would have any use? Input validation seems suddenly very appropriate for wait staff.

Incidentally, the BBC also reports the meal cost £284.68 and the image of the receipt shows £73.45 in drinks. I don’t know why the price matters, but as long as everyone seems to be sending random data as output, I thought I would join in on the fun.

Ok, who now is still worried about the POS vendors who handle money or voting machines?

How long would this type of message be stored in the system, and would it be tied to the credit card number, or a customer name?