Ulster Bank Systems are down *READ* Mod post #291

Bummer1234

Noticed on my Bank statement (when i was able to access it) That they charged me twice for one Debit card transaction. The transaction went through on the 18th june and then the charge me the same again on the 19th(ps i olnly got it once), Should i let it roll out and see if it enters back up on the system or head to the bank and tell them?

stee.mc79

Colonialboy wrote: »

I wonder how many people will close accounts cos of this.

I will be closing my acc's with UB soon as they have my balances correct (fool me once thing) . How do you set up a poll on boards to find out how many Ulster bank customers will stay with the bank?

later12

Alive063 wrote: »

I'm wondering has the funds left the employers account or not? This would be significant, no?

If they're anything like us, then yes. Everyone here was paid last Wednesday night, still haven't received a cent (from Ulster Bank) but the money has left the account according to online banking. Hopefully not looking into a second week of that.

I also just noticed a small double charge on our business account from last week; in the past few weeks there have been another couple of aberrations whereby money was taken out of our account and paid to creditors, then briefly came back in for a few days, and then went back out again. One was an EFT payment, another a direct deposit, no idea what went wrong there but overall it has left a far less than favourable impression of UB's performance which is now completely untrustworthy.

mathie

testicle wrote: »

They have rolled back. What do you think they've done?

How long did it take them to start rolling back though?

creativedrinker

Hey, im normally paid on a monthly basis and was due to be paid on Thursday, i got paid today but i was 140 short of what my pay slip says, has this happened to anyone else? that their payment was less, im just trying to figure out do i ask work or get onto UB about it?

Jet Black

Checking my account this morning and still no wages suppose to be paid Friday. Went into the bank expecting madness but it was empty. Guy at the counter asked me to just check at the machine to see if it had updated on the ATM as some internet balances were not up to date. Nothing there. My standing orders start coming out on 28th. Its going to start getting messy if its not fixed by then.

My UPC bill is showing as paid, was due on the 22th. Not showing on UB.

Colonialboy

mathie wrote: »

How long did it take them to start rolling back though?

at this point its not a time issue. its a knowledge issue.
In fact it never really was a time issue.
If they hadnt fired all the people who know this stuff and hadnt outsourced the IT , this problem would not have grown to this level.

The original issue would more than likely been caught in testing and never cause a problem , and if it had caused a problem Ive no doubt the expereinced people would have sorted it in a few hours , you might (unlikely) have had some ATM downtime on the morning after the problem but that would have been the worst.

This isnt the first time and it wont be the last time a major bank has a problem in IT overnight, but its probaly the first time poeple have seen the result to this degree of a major bank having an IT problem and then realised they fired all the only people who could fix it.

Colonialboy

mathie wrote: »

I also just noticed a small double charge on our business account from last week; in the past few weeks there have been another couple of aberrations whereby money was taken out of our account and paid to creditors, then briefly came back in for a few days, and then went back out again. One was an EFT payment, another a direct deposit, no idea what went wrong there but overall it has left a far less than favourable impression of UB's performance which is now completely untrustworthy.

BINGO -
Thats the clue that this problem was manifesting itself a few weeks ago.
Its all about running the jobs at night in the right order, RBS outsourced this work to another country.
Obviously they didnt know what they were doing a few weeks back, and ran jobs in the wrong order, and multiple times.

This was a red flag to say they didnt understand what they were doing .

And then last tuesday the whole system crashed and it wasnt just one or two jobs running in the wrong order , no jobs were running and they couldnt recover.

IF THE NEW PEOPLE DONT KNOW HOW TO RUN THINGS WHEN EVERYTHING IS WORKING - HOW DO YOU EXPECT THEM TO RUN OR RECOVER WHEN EVERYTHING IS BROKE

Boom_Bap

Colonialboy wrote: »

at this point its not a time issue. its a knowledge issue.
In fact it never really was a time issue.
If they hadnt fired all the people who know this stuff and hadnt outsourced the IT , this problem would not have grown to this level.

The original issue would more than likely been caught in testing and never cause a problem , and if it had caused a problem Ive no doubt the expereinced people would have sorted it in a few hours , you might (unlikely) have had some ATM downtime on the morning after the problem but that would have been the worst.

This isnt the first time and it wont be the last time a major bank has a problem in IT overnight, but its probaly the first time poeple have seen the result to this degree of a major bank having an IT problem and then realised they fired all the only people who could fix it.

If you dont know what the original issue is, there is no point speculating that outsourcing is the cause of the length of the downtime. There is no way to determine if 'experienced' people would have fixed it quicker. If you look at it from a project perspective along with your theory, the experienced people did not do a proper handover of the system when outsourcing. So ultimately it is thier fault.

later12

Colonialboy wrote: »

at this point its not a time issue. its a knowledge issue.
In fact it never really was a time issue.
If they hadnt fired all the people who know this stuff and hadnt outsourced the IT , this problem would not have grown to this level.

The original issue would more than likely been caught in testing and never cause a problem , and if it had caused a problem Ive no doubt the expereinced people would have sorted it in a few hours , you might (unlikely) have had some ATM downtime on the morning after the problem but that would have been the worst.

This isnt the first time and it wont be the last time a major bank has a problem in IT overnight, but its probaly the first time poeple have seen the result to this degree of a major bank having an IT problem and then realised they fired all the only people who could fix it.

I'm not sure I really like the way there seems to be a suggestion that Indian workers are less capable or something; aside from the fact that an Indian company or workforce have taken on this IT role, is there any verifiable reason to believe that they are less capable than the team they replaced?

mimsy

later12 wrote: »

Alive063 wrote: »

I'm wondering has the funds left the employers account or not? This would be significant, no?

If they're anything like us, then yes. Everyone here was paid last Wednesday night, still haven't received a cent (from Ulster Bank) but the money has left the account according to online banking. Hopefully not looking into a second week of that.

I also just noticed a small double charge on our business account from last week; in the past few weeks there have been another couple of aberrations whereby money was taken out of our account and paid to creditors, then briefly came back in for a few days, and then went back out again. One was an EFT payment, another a direct deposit, no idea what went wrong there but overall it has left a far less than favourable impression of UB's performance which is now completely untrustworthy.

That is interesting, and indicative of messing around with overnight batch processing with a while.
It seems to gave escalated to the extent of completely falling over last week.
I would wonder why senior management hadn't intervened prior to this.

My mum told me this morning she is still waiting for her HSE pay to hit her AIB account. The only other money they get is social welfare so I'm hoping something isresolved this week for them or we'll have to deliver cash to them one way or another.

loveisdivine

RTE now reporting that it will be next week before everything is back to normal.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2012/0626/ulster-bank-rbs.html

The Royal Bank of Scotland, which owns Ulster Bank, has said it is confident it can restore a full service for customers for the start of next week.

Our man in Havana

No money again today. :mad:

Ryaner

Hibernicis wrote: »

They are managing to process ATM withdrawals out of sequence...........

Dont see why they cant do the same for incoming salary credits, social welfare payments etc.

Internal transfers, i.e. ulsterbank to ulsterbank are going through in realtime as well. Was able to transfer money between two accounts without any delay yesterday.
Would assume the interbank clearing system is a separate queue, same as the atms from different banks would be.

KeithTS

Colonialboy wrote: »

at this point its not a time issue. its a knowledge issue.
In fact it never really was a time issue.
If they hadnt fired all the people who know this stuff and hadnt outsourced the IT , this problem would not have grown to this level.

The original issue would more than likely been caught in testing and never cause a problem , and if it had caused a problem Ive no doubt the expereinced people would have sorted it in a few hours , you might (unlikely) have had some ATM downtime on the morning after the problem but that would have been the worst.

This isnt the first time and it wont be the last time a major bank has a problem in IT overnight, but its probaly the first time poeple have seen the result to this degree of a major bank having an IT problem and then realised they fired all the only people who could fix it.

Unless you know the exact problem you're better off not speculating its due to outsourcing.

Its not as if the IT guys were outsourced a few weeks ago, if it was due to somebody not knowing what they were doing this would have happened well before now.

More than likely a rollback was put in place, which would have taken a fair bit of time due to the size of the systems, and every transaction from the time of the incident to the time the rollback finished will have to be done manually, not only that, as balances were not correct whilst other transaction were carried out in the days since, so all of those need to be checked and rechecked and so on.

Work of this nature takes a lot of time, it seems to have gotten out of hand admittedly but to blame outsourcing is ignorant and has no relevance whatsoever!

Colonialboy

later12 wrote: »

I'm not sure I really like the way there seems to be a suggestion that Indian workers are less capable or something; aside from the fact that an Indian company or workforce have taken on this IT role, is there any verifiable reason to believe that they are less capable than the team they replaced?

FYI . Im not speculating, I know exactly what happened and why it happened .


read my posts again, im not saying the indians are less capable , im saying they are less expereinced.
Ive no doubt some of the indian workers hired are smarter and more qualified (in terms of uni) than some of the people they replaced but they dont have the expereince particularily the expereince and understanding of how the whole RBS sytems comes together.
The banks mgmt expected too much too soon from the people they handed the work over to.
The banks mgmt were too dismissive and lacked any respect for the in depth knowledge of the people they let go

please dont accuse me of what I think your accusing me off.

If they had gotten cheap graduates in Sheffiled todo this work I would be saying the same thing. You cant fire people with 20 years of experience who wrote the bloody system your using and hand it to someone with two years expereince and alot of documentation and expect them to understand how it works and especially to understand how to put it back together if something goes wrong.

btw yes in fact the final handover to '______' the place where the work is now being done did in fact take place a few weeks ago.

ps. Im actually pro-outsourcing. I like to see developement and enhancement of the lives of people in poorer nations and some real wealth distribution at the worker level and not at the govt level(cos politicians everywhere will just skim it). But dont outsource just for the sake of it and dont disrespect the person you are replacing cos some accountant looks at a balance sheet and says cut the expensive guy and hire the cheap guy. Sustainable globalisation lets take that to another thread ..

msg11

Our man in Havana wrote: »

No money again today. :mad:

Same here, no money. Seriously getting worried about having two uncleared work pay in there system if it rolls onto next week and going on holidays next week.

Have to say, after this fiasco I don't think I will be continuing my banking with them, if there going to bring in banking charges soon, I rather be with a bank a little bit more capable.

Savman

Nothing here either.

Scrummage

msg11 wrote: »

Same here, no money. Seriously getting worried about having two uncleared work pay in there system if it rolls onto next week and going on holidays next week.

Have to say, after this fiasco I don't think I will be continuing my banking with them, if there going to bring in banking charges soon, I rather be with a bank a little bit more capable.

Agreed I will be moving banks as well fed up no money and no light at the end of the tunnel.

touts

http://www.newstalk.ie/2012/news/rbs-says-ulster-bank-backlog-now-its-full-focus/

“The full focus of our efforts will now be on delivering the same result for our Ulster Bank customers who continue to experience unacceptable delays to their accounts being updated”

So given that they have fixed RBS & Natwest and their Irish customers are still not solved it begs the question what, if any, focus was on solving Ulster Bank up to now?


“We are confident that this will help us restore a full service for the start of next week for Ulster Bank"

If the problem won't be fixed until next week that brings the end of month salaries and the second cycle of fortnightly payments (e.g. HSE last week Teachers this week) right into play!

wonski

Seems that credit card accounts are affected too - i know that transactions are taken few days later, but never seen my balance going up and down on credit card account. from 500 to 520 (20E transaction went through), and then back to 500(same transaction still there, but balance reversed???, even tough i spent 80 in the meantime. Weird.
Hope my first monthly salary will be there on Thursday as planned (moved to permanent position this month, so had only one week pay+holiday pay this month), as all direct debit and rent due at the end of the month...

neonitrix

mabey someone can help me, but i have an account that is bone dry and has wages pending since last thursday & friday that have not appeared yet.

I am unable to get into a branch, so I am going to be forced to use my MBNA credit card as an Atm card for this weeks transactions food / bills / diesel etc.

Has anyone seen any info about claiming charges for withdrawls / interest from different banks c. cards back from ulsterband due to this error?

I tried ringing my branch and got hung up on

tks

neonitrix

eigrod

They keep saying they are working their way through the backlog. But has anybody on here actually received money into their account via an electronic transaction since last Wednesday ?

Nobody that I've spoken to has and as far as I can see on this thread, nobody seems to have.

cookie1977

neonitrix wrote: »

mabey someone can help me, but i have an account that is bone dry and has wages pending since last thursday & friday that have not appeared yet.

I am unable to get into a branch, so I am going to be forced to use my MBNA credit card as an Atm card for this weeks transactions food / bills / diesel etc.

Has anyone seen any info about claiming charges for withdrawls / interest from different banks c. cards back from ulsterband due to this error?

I tried ringing my branch and got hung up on

tks

neonitrix

Keep full receipts for everything that you have to do as a result of the issue but I'd expect they (UB) would want to see that you went for the cheapest method of getting money. I would imagine they wont pay out for any claim amount.

Our man in Havana

eigrod wrote: »

They keep saying they are working their way through the backlog. But has anybody on here actually received money into their account via an electronic transaction since last Wednesday ?

Nobody that I've spoken to has and as far as I can see on this thread, nobody seems to have.

Nothing processed since last Wednesday it would appear.

I know many people waiting on social welfare still which was due last Thursday.

UB are still telling a pack of lies to its' customers.

Hibernicis

touts wrote: »

“The full focus of our efforts will now be on delivering the same result for our Ulster Bank customers who continue to experience unacceptable delays to their accounts being updated”

So given that they have fixed RBS & Natwest and their Irish customers are still not solved it begs the question what, if any, focus was on solving Ulster Bank up to now?

Absolutly the last straw. The "Mainland" has been sorted and we will now start to address the issues in "Eire". The Edwardian "Fog in channel, Europe cut off" lives on.

Up to now, I had resolved to keep all of my Ulster Accounts post cleanup, and move 50% of the substantial deposit I keep in the Ulster SIDA (Special interest Deposit Account) to a safer, more accessible and better managed Bank. However with this acknowledgment that the Irish are second class citizens, Ulster is a second class bank and I am a second class customer I will probably move the lot.

wonski

neonitrix wrote: »

mabey someone can help me, but i have an account that is bone dry and has wages pending since last thursday & friday that have not appeared yet.

I am unable to get into a branch, so I am going to be forced to use my MBNA credit card as an Atm card for this weeks transactions food / bills / diesel etc.

Has anyone seen any info about claiming charges for withdrawls / interest from different banks c. cards back from ulsterband due to this error?

I tried ringing my branch and got hung up on

tks

neonitrix

If you pay it off in full soon enough, you won't be charged (unless you withdraw money from atm...) I would rather not use it in atm unless you really have to. Also Aldi and Lidl won't accept credit cards.
Ulster says they will refund, but trying to get 20 or so euro from them will very likely involve visit to branch and some paperwork... Would rather avoid this hassle.

dee.

My visa debit won't work, have been trying to make a purchase online for about €160, I have €1k in my account (And 300 that isn't showing up yet) but its still saying it can't be authorized. Rang ulster bank and they can't tell me why its being declined because their systems are still down...wonderful. Lady on the phone said she would transfer me to another department who might be able to help..so I wait on hold for 15 mins then they cut me off. Thanks ulster bank.

Chuckler

eigrod wrote: »

They keep saying they are working their way through the backlog. But has anybody on here actually received money into their account via an electronic transaction since last Wednesday ?

Nobody that I've spoken to has and as far as I can see on this thread, nobody seems to have.

The only way I received money was by transferring my savings into my current account but the Computers quadruppled the amount of my savings which I withdrew (thankfully). There is no neg balance in either accounts but still no sign of wages in or payments out (O2 didn't get any money). My advice is to contact everyone you have a direct debit / Standing Order with, explain your predicament and ask them to stretch your payments out for another week until this mess is sorted!

Also keep receipts of everything!

neonitrix

wonski wrote: »

If you pay it off in full soon enough, you won't be charged (unless you withdraw money from atm...) I would rather not use it in atm unless you really have to. Also Aldi and Lidl won't accept credit cards.
Ulster says they will refund, but trying to get 20 or so euro from them will very likely involve visit to branch and some paperwork... Would rather avoid this hassle.

As it stands I am kinda faced with having to take some money out of atm with credit card even if its just to keep things going for the week, after that i will use the c card to pay for transactions but its all abit much at the moment now knowing when things will improve if at all.

starting to get worried about the small bit of savings we do have that i cant access because its online only.

neonitrix