Ulster Bank Systems Down, Many Left Without Money

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Just to update - there is still NO access to moneydesk deposits. Rang again today and they couldnt/wouldnt even give me an idea on when anyone can expect to access funds. Surprised there is not more of an uproar over this situation. Obviously will not be using them again. Got a letter from NIB saying they are closing all their branches bar a handful and are changing their name to Danske bank. Will have to use their award winning website instead. The same one that rarely works. Am wondering whether any of these banks can be relied upon or trusted even for the basics ?
 
Just to update - there is still NO access to moneydesk deposits. Rang again today and they couldnt/wouldnt even give me an idea on when anyone can expect to access funds.

You have a right to access to your funds.

Kick up a big enough fuss and they will give you cash or a cheque even if the amount is large. Keep escalating until you get your cash or drop in person to Ulster HQ.

I know someone who had to spend 3 hours on the phone, to get a sizable amount of money from Ulster, from an 'instant access' fund and eventually succeeded in the end.
 
Will there be a means of reclaiming interest that has accrued on loan payments that have not been made on time?

I've a sizable loan with a credit union who have an account with UB and the payments have not gone through in two weeks. There has been 100 euro of interest applied to the loan amount that would not have been there otherwise. The payments have been sitting there for two weeks waiting to go through.

Also I have a savings account with UB and it appears that credits have been applied that were never made. Presumably this will correct itself over the coming days?
 
Absolutely. As I said, there needs to be a clear simple procedure for non-Ulster Bank customers to make claims against Ulster Bank for late payment.

My OH has already had fees refunded by BOI. It has been suggested that the other banks will just refund things as requested and then settle up with Ulsterbank themselves. Most of banks are being very accommodating, well above and beyond what I expected.

As for the regulator, they should have been all over this much earlier, and I expect much firmer rules from this outage. The current situation of the banks having 40 days before having to official notify them is beyond ridiculous.
But then short of fines, they are between a rock and a hard place. Biggest threat they have is to pull the banking licence, but even hinting of this and UB could just turn around and tell them to bring in the liquidator. Bit like a game of chicken.
 
As for the regulator, they should have been all over this much earlier, and I expect much firmer rules from this outage.

Why does it always take a disaster for firmer rules to be enacted,why in this Country is the stable doors always hanging off its hinges,and the horse in another Country before our useless "regulators" get off their backsides and do what they should have done in the first place....simply close and bolt the blasted door.
 
Anytime-banking down for me again this morning

"We're sorry but the service is temporarily unavailable. Please try again later."
 
Day 14.

I have been waiting for 6 Ulster Bank related cash movements since the outage began. Only 1 of the 6 movements have taken place (last week).

3 of my mates who are waiting for their salary have still not been paid. 1 is waiting 2 weeks to be paid.

Anytime-banking down for me again this morning

Yeah, there is a fresh outage today of Ulster online banking.

My OH has already had fees refunded by BOI. It has been suggested that the other banks will just refund things as requested and then settle up with Ulsterbank themselves. Most of banks are being very accommodating, well above and beyond what I expected.

Good point about using your existing back, in the first instance, to claim compensation and then Ulster Bank if all else fails.
 
Anytime-banking down for me again this morning

"We're sorry but the service is temporarily unavailable. Please try again later."
Stupid thing is it lets you go through the login process before telling you that the system is not available. :rolleyes:

Why on earth did (as it seems) they apply patches to a live system, let it run and then lose all transaction data (and backups?) when it went wrong? I don't know how banking IT is done but from a general IT perspective it would always make sense to run patches and tests on an offline system/simulation before going live.
 
Exactly. It is totally outrageous that a system issue can go on for 14 days tomorrow (it started on Tuesday June 19) and could go on for another week. Customers, at this stage, would be totally justified, in ending their relationship with Ulster and switching.

My fixed account maturing shortly will be going elsewhere. I hope it is still there when they finally can manage to switch their computers back on though.
 
I got through to anytime banking just now, account hasn't been updated for last two weeks. Still waiting on salary :-(
 
Why does it always take a disaster for firmer rules to be enacted,why in this Country is the stable doors always hanging off its hinges,and the horse in another Country before our useless "regulators" get off their backsides and do what they should have done in the first place....simply close and bolt the blasted door.

Irish regulator has never been a great one. Its why the current crowd effectively had to replace everyone involved. Our laws were written in the dark ages when in comes to finance as well and while they could easily write new ones, the pace at which things more through the systems over here is glacial. An outage like this should give them the power to get things changed, however you'd also have though the larger crisis from 2008 onwards would have done the same, so who knows...
 
Latest news.

Indo: Ulster Bank Now Hit With Fraud.

http://www.independent.ie/business/...lems-causing-chaos-for-customers-3155621.html

it emerged yesterday that crooks are targeting Ulster Bank using the same payslip or social insurance details to withdraw cash in branches.Staff have no way of checking if people are making multiple withdrawals at different branches, as its computer systems are still not up to date.


It is understood branches up and down the country have been targeted by cheats making claims in a number of branches for cash payments.
A spokeswoman for the bank admitted: "People are trying it on. But then people come into branches and try it on all the time. We have stringent procedures in place to tackle fraud."


The spokeswoman had no comment to make when asked if it was true the bank has no way of checking if people are making multiple cash withdrawals using the same payslip or social welfare papers.
RTE: Ulster Bank Problems to Continue Into Next Week.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2012/0703/ulster-bank-technology.html

The Royal Bank of Scotland has said the problems at its subsidiary Ulster Bank could continue into next week.
The technical fault has led to a backlog of unprocessed transactions, which will be increased further today when 48,000 monthly social welfare payments are due to be paid to Ulster Bank customers.
 
Anytime banking is back up again (or at least for me it is) and my salary from June 25th is in my account this morning, finally!
 
Actually Ceist Beag just answered my question, kinda. I was wondering if anyone has seen ANY movement into their UB account in the past week? All of the statements say they are 'working' on the problem, that would suggest to me that we should see a trickle of people gradually getting paid. But anecdotally anyone I know has seen nothing coming in since the problem began. In our case we haven't been paid, nor has childrens allowance gone in, and our mortgage and DDs aren't going out. Although online banking is working and I can still get cash from the ATM, it's an 'artifical' sum as I'm basically spending this month's mortgage in the absence of a pay check! So are they working on the problem at all?
 
Just tried to access anytime banking (yeah right!) and it's not available again - what a farce!
 
Actually Ceist Beag just answered my question, kinda. I was wondering if anyone has seen ANY movement into their UB account in the past week?

Yes, I have. As I said, I was expecting to see 6 movements, I have seen 1 of the 6 movements occur. I am missing 5 of the 6 movements. The 1 movement that did occur, happened with an unusual narrative/reference.
 
Yes, I have. As I said, I was expecting to see 6 movements, I have seen 1 of the 6 movements occur. I am missing 5 of the 6 movements. The 1 movement that did occur, happened with an unusual narrative/reference.

OK. Well we've seen nothing and for my sins I have four UB accounts including savings. So no wages into our joint account since this began and no dd out of joint account or my individual account. I have been able to move money from savings into current to cover the missing wages but that's nearly gone now.
When you say unusual narrative/reference, do you think that means it was done manually?
 
OK. Well we've seen nothing and for my sins I have four UB accounts including savings. So no wages into our joint account since this began and no dd out of joint account or my individual account. I have been able to move money from savings into current to cover the missing wages but that's nearly gone now.
When you say unusual narrative/reference, do you think that means it was done manually?

UB will give you an interest free overdraft to the value of your wages. Just pop into the branch and ask for it with a wage slip.

The narrative was "INTERNATIONAL TRANSFER". It was not an international transfer. Clearly something was done differently to push this one transaction through.
 
Very frustrating from a business point of view. Managed to get same day payment off to a supplier, but am in with AIB later to open account with them so that I'm no longer dependent on one bank. - Though I will say the staff are doing their utmost to help and they should be congratulated (I'm sure they will enjoy their deserved overtime payments too!!)

Last credit card credit to account is 18th June and currently about 60k of credits are in cyberspace.

Suppliers have been very understanding, but why should they suffer too? - Hence the opening of a second bank account.


As for fraud - I'd say they will lose a few million. Imagine you can lodge an UB cheque into another bank account, afetr 5 days its "cleared" - even if there are no funds in the UB account!

memo to self - write €2m cheque for personal account wth NIB, transfer to cayman island acc in 5 days, book one way flight to Cook Islands! :)
 
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