Bank of Ireland outage sees customers queue for 'free' cash – or maybe any cash
- Reference: 1692168788
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2023/08/16/bank_of_ireland_outage/
- Source link:
The incident appears to have started life as an outage that Bank of Ireland acknowledged late on Tuesday night in social media [1]posts that advised "We are aware that customers using our mobile app and 365Online are currently experiencing difficulties." The bank apologized and promised to fix things ASAP and keep customers informed.
Plenty of those customers were soon queueing at ATMs because – as reported in [2]The Irish Times and [3]The Irish Independent and many other sources – the cash machines happily emitted more cash than was held in accounts.
[4]
The Times has also reported that €1,000 appeared in some accounts, without explanation. Which may be one reason reports suggest Gardaí (police) were even called as crowds at cash machines became heated when they ran out of bills.
[5]
[6]
It is of course completely plausible that customers unable to access their banking app, or online services, just wanted to make sure they had some cash to hand. Because nobody would ever try to cash in on a bank error, right?
[7]Ex-CIO must pay £81k over Total Shambles Bank migration
[8]HSBC banks on quantum to lock down comms network
[9]Suspected bank-infecting OPERA1ER crime boss cuffed
[10]Australia to phase out checks by 2030
The Bank delivered on its promise to keep customers up to date with a killjoy [11]warning to the effect that "We would like to remind customers if transferring/withdrawing funds – including over normal limits – this money will be debited from their account. We are conscious customers may not be able to check balances, but should not withdraw/transfer if they are likely to become overdrawn."
The Bank sent The Register a statement about the incident that opened: "Yesterday a technical issue impacted a number of Bank of Ireland's services. Our teams restored these services overnight and all services are available to customers this morning."
The statement continued: "We are aware that the technical issue meant some customers were able to withdraw or transfer funds above their normal limits. These transfers and withdrawals will be applied to customers' accounts today. We urge any customer who may find themselves in financial difficulty due to overdrawing on their account to contact us.
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"We sincerely apologize for the disruption this outage caused – we know we fell far below the standards our customers expect from us," the statement concluded.
The Bank did not, however, confirm or deny the reports of €1,000 deposits. ®
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[1] https://twitter.com/talktoBOI/status/1691462421100322817
[2] https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/dublin/2023/08/15/bank-of-ireland-working-to-fix-technical-issue-as-customers-report-being-unable-to-access-accounts-online/
[3] https://www.independent.ie/business/personal-finance/bank-of-ireland-it-blunder-allows-customers-who-have-no-money-get-access-to-cash-at-atms/a510070628.html
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZNyeULGGH111dap-7RBkvAAAA9c&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZNyeULGGH111dap-7RBkvAAAA9c&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZNyeULGGH111dap-7RBkvAAAA9c&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2023/04/14/ex_cio_tsb_fine/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2023/07/06/hsbc_vodafone_quantum_security/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2023/07/05/interpol_opera1er_arrest/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2023/06/07/australia_phases_out_checks/
[11] https://twitter.com/talktoBOI/status/1691573062972457109
[12] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZNyeULGGH111dap-7RBkvAAAA9c&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[13] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
It's a bank. they should just say people can keep the 1000 they withdrew, but they have to give up the souls of their delicious, tasty children to the bank's director board.
After all, eating children feet first (so they can see the look on the kids face) is what banks REALLY want out of this world.
BoI's unauthorized overdraft rate is somewhere around 35% at the moment, so giving up your firstborn would probably be cheaper.
It's a bank, of course it's not free money
The only way you're getting free money out of an offline cash machine is if the power fortuitously gets cut before it can talk to the mothership again and maybe not even then.
Perhaps the only way the bank was remiss is not making "this is not free money" message more blindingly obvious than it already was when the customer puts their card in, by displaying it in flashing red Comic Sans 36 point or something.
Re: It's a bank, of course it's not free money
They don't need to say it.
It's obvious that any money withdrawn will be money debited from the account and, if you don't actuallw have that money, you'll have to give it back when your account sees the extra money removed.
It's disheartening to realize that people can still believe that, just because there's a bank error, it's party time.
No people. There was a bank error. It WILL be corrected.
If I do ever see some unexpected sum on my bank account, I will wait a few days to be contacted by whomever it was that sent the money. If days, then weeks go by without any contact, then I will cautiously start believing that maybe, just maybe, I can actually keep it.
But I'm not going to rush the same day or the next to an ATM to extract some of that. It's not mine until I'm sure. And even then, the possibility that someone will come a-knocking to get it back will always loom over that money.
Re: It's a bank, of course it's not free money
The RBS once credited my account with £300 which they said I had withdrawn from a cash machine and not picked up, leaving it to be swallowed again. I was absolutely sure that this did not happen because I was skint at the time, and in the unlikely event that I had withdrawn £300 there would have been a purpose and I would not casually have forgotten it. I told them, and they insisted that they owed me the money. So I took it.
Funny that it only ever works one way
Error in your favour: give it a few msec before they discover it, and the police may get involved
Error in their favour: you're in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike. Good luck finding anyone even willing to acknowledge you exist and have an account let alone are owed something. Oh, and that Banking Ombudsman? Guess who pays him?
They screw up in volume: say bye bye to your taxes as they will be used to continue funding bonuses.
If the banks wanted some good PR, they could just say "Look, we remember when you all bailed us out in 2008. And times are harder now than they were then. So just take the money as a sign of our gratitude to what you've done for us."
But then I remember it's a bank.