Bank of America Customers Shut out of Accounts
in Apparent Outage
The Charlotte Observer
July 19, 2017
By Deon Roberts
A Bank of America automated teller machine in Massachusetts is shown in this July 2016 photo.
Elise Amendola - AP
Bank of America customers were locked out of their online accounts on Wednesday in an apparent system outage, that affected the Charlotte-based company.
The problem, which generated complaints from customers across the U.S., prevented people from accessing accounts on smartphones and other devices. Bank spokeswoman Jumana Bauwens said, the issue began earlier Wednesday, but that as of mid-afternoon the number of affected customers was continuing to decline.
“Some customers may have been unable to access some of our online and/or mobile banking applications,” Bauwens said. “We have identified the solution and are updating systems now. Many customers, who experienced difficulty initially, are now operating normally.”
On Downdetector.com, a website, that tracks reports of system outages, reports started spiking after 11:30 a.m. and the website was inundated with comments from Bank of America customers around the country saying, they couldn’t access online banking from their applications or computers, transfer money or deposit money or checks. By 1 p.m. the website had received nearly 1,000 reports of problems. Complaints were still being posted to the site after 4 p.m.
Bauwens said, she did not have specifics on regions of the country, that may have been affected or the number of affected customers.
On Twitter, users across the country were reporting issues accessing their accounts.
“@BankofAmerica system wide outage on the day, I’m closing on my house and there is nothing, they can do about it,” tweeted Twitter user @CapricornLove7.
“The clerk at @BankofAmerica just said, I can't make a deposit, [because] of a nationwide disruption. Anyone know, what's up?,” tweeted user @Henkenius.
@BankofAmerica system wide outage on the day I'm closing on my house and there is nothing they can do about it
— Kenyata M (@CapricornLove7) July 19, 2017The clerk at @BankofAmerica just said I can't make a deposit bc if a nationwide disruption. Anyone know what's up?
— Tom Henkenius (@Henkenius) July 19, 2017Lost my debit card, so I went to Bank of America to make a cash withdrawal so I could have money, and their system is down. My life rn.....
— Hayley (@Hayleeey_23) July 19, 2017Similar situation. Went to Bank of America branch 2X today: morning and afternoon, nationwide outage still effective and tellers closed. https://t.co/28eLfkZ9MP
— Ankara Goddess (@Chakra_Sandhi) July 19, 2017Chabeli Herrera of The Miami Herald contributed.
