Bank of America’s online banking system went on the fritz for some users Tuesday, the second such incident this year.
Customers attempting to access the bank’s online services were experiencing “intermittent service disruptions,” according to Tara Burke, a spokeswoman for the bank.
The bank is working to restore the system to normal as soon as possible, Burke said. The bank’s branches and ATM network are unaffected, she said.
In January, the bank experienced a similar problem, caused by an IT glitch.
Tuesday’s service disruptions are the result of a routine update performed on the system over the weekend, and no personal banking data is at risk, Burke said.
But the outage is particularly ill-timed, hitting on the first of the month — a day when many customers are scrambling to pay bills. Bank of America “will work with customers on an individual basis” to resolve any problems stemming from that, Burke said.
The problem kept Bank of America’s Twitter account, @bofa—help, hopping all day, pumping out a steady stream of messages saying: “We are aware of the issue and are working to resolve it as fast as possible. Please accept our apologies.”
Frank Murray, a Bank of America customer in Fort Myers, Fla., said he had trouble logging into his account for much of the day.
“It was off much of the afternoon, and unusually slow before that,” Murray said.
Murray said attempts to access his account were met with a screen declaring there was an “outage.” Later the message changed to an “upgrade.”
“I’m guessing nobody planned an upgrade at mid-afternoon on the first of the month,” he said.
Mike’s link works in Florida!!
if bankofamerica.com doesn’t get you on
sitekey.bankofamerica.com worked for me in Texas
http://www.bankofamerica.com/onlinebanking
and
https://sitekey.bankofamerica.com
are both working for me in Georgia. Thanks for the workarounds, Mike and Joe!
this not the first time.boa is going to have a lot of accounts closed if this keeps happening
I was also able to access using Mike’s link from his post.
Why is everyone complaining about the site being down for less than a day? Dude…its online. S*&t happens to computers and software because they are made by humans and humans make mistakes. At least you don’t have to write checks and go to a teller like in the 90s. IT’S 2011 AND ANYONE CAN BANK FROM A COMPUTER. Same thing when people complain about a late plane departure from LA to NY. Dude…you’ll be on an airplane…a huge piece of metal that flies…you will be flying through the air at like 500mph and you will arrive in less than 6 hours…you’ll probably take a nap anyway. You don’t have to go on horseback, or foot, and arrive weeks later. Everyone stop being babies a be grateful that technology has helped up get things done faster. Just be patient.
Georgia is working again.
I’m still not getting anywhere from the homepage for Georgia.
Anyone else getting through from BOA’s home page?
I just tried and it says online banking is unavailable to Illinois customers. Must be a state-by-state thing. I wish someone would just put BOA out of its misery like they do when a horse can’t run anymore.
Friends and associates,
This morning I logged into Bank of America online bill pay, and was unable to access my checking (2) accounts and or my bill pay accounts. I tried for about three hours and was unable to login. Around one thirty I went to my bank and informed them and they gave me a phone number to call 800-833-6262 which gives a recorded message ( which states you have reached a nonworking number four card services, for Bank of America.
As I walked out of the bank another bank client informed me Bank of America was being taken over by the federal government and all their checking accounts would be managed through another federally insured bank. This also will include clients who have had loans with countrywide.
Mortgages through both Countrywide and Bank of America will now be adjusted down to their appropriate actual value not their on the books value. Customers behind in payments will be allowed to modify their loan agreements and make interest-only payments as to the actual value of their properties, not the value BoA has on their books.
Bank of America has agreed to adjust all (1,957,642) one million nine hundred and fifty-seven thousand six hundred and forty-two existing loans which are behind, within the next hundred and twenty(120) days for those who are capable of making interest only payments which will stop the immediate foreclosures on many.
Only question for Bank of America and other( financial institutions & mortgage lenders) why wasn’t this done two years ago ?
Respectfully yours
Eyes across America
BOA tellers didn’t even know it was down. Glad I only have one account with them. They are totally clueless!
I hate this bank with a passion! These bastards are nothing but a bunch of thieves with their sneaky fees. Their site sucks for me all the time, whether I’m on my laptop at home or on my office computer. I can’t wait until the end of May when I can consolidate my different direct deposits and automatic bill payments so that I can drop these fools.
i agree with boo yah, you guys need to relax, i work in IT and know that system software and even hardware can have problems, it’s definitely not perfect, it’s not like they took your money and ran, they simply need the downtime to correct the issue, just chill.
Happened to me in Jan, BofA online access was down, when I was trying to pay my BofA visa which was due. I tried to get into their website several times but no go. BofA give me a late payment fee and froze my account limit because of it!
I had to contact two different departments and got a chewing out for me being late. All is well now with my BofA account but I had to fight to get the late fee off my account and my credit limit unfrozen.
Moving to Wisconsin soon. BOA not allowed to do business in WI. Woo Hoo. Can’t wait. Texas link no longer works by the way.
Anyone who works in IT should not give these guys a pass for the simple reason that professional IT people KNOW that in ANY “upgrade” scenario, it is CRITICAL to be able to rollback to the last fully-functional version just in case there are problems like this with the “upgrade”.
The fact that BoA has not been able to (a) fix the issue within 30 minutes or (b) roll back to the previously-working version of their system speaks volumes about the quality of IT work BoA accepts.
The other fact that these problems exist in a live production website speak even more loudly about BoA’s IT people and their level of ability. Have they never heard of a “sandbox”? Pathetic.
I had no trouble logging in through the BoA mobile website on my phone and transferring some funds around (coughoverdraftcough), even though my home computers were reporting no service available.
Message to IT
Never schedule a “routine” update to happen on the first of the month.
I still can’t login to my account from the home page, but I can get in from sitekey.bankofamerica.com. I live in IL, and on the homepage, it say, “Online banking is temporarily unavailable for IL customers. Sorry for the inconvenience.” I’m glad I can at least get on from the link mentioned above.
Any of you leaving messages for IT should post in Hindi. I don’t think BofA has much US technical staff left…..
I tried to lodge a complaint with a Bank of America’s executive offices, but I was turned away by a branch manager who told me that he was the “highest ranking Bank of America employee I would ever speak to.”
It turns out he was right. I closed my account that same day, and I’ve never spoken to anyone at Bank of America since then.
I know from my job at a major bank that most of the IT work is now being done in India. Salaries run about twenty cents on the dollar compared to America, so I’d say they are getting what they paid for.
BOA is really a piece of ****. They won’t tell you anything in advance.