I haven't been able to use my Wells Fargo online banking account for about 4 days now. I log in, but then it times out and can't connect to my account data or something. There are probably many layers involved and it's hard to pinpoint where the fault is, but this is a major outage as far as I'm concerned - I need to pay my bills! Better go back to manual I suppose.

I'm thinking Y2K testing failures...

-- Dave (dfassett@cts.com), April 27, 1999

Answers

I have made 3 trips to the CU we bank with to order new checks...the first two times the order simply disappeared off the computer. Yesterday they ordered by phone for me...supposed to get checks tomorrow, special delivery... I asked to see the manager and asked if this was a special case or if they had been experiencing computer difficulties. Told her I wanted to know because a year ago we experienced credit card and bank fraud and I wanted to know if I should be concerned. She blinked (which I have found usually means "how do I lie without lying?") and then said no they weren't experiencing any computer problems. This in spite of the fact that the teller who first talked with me told me they couldn't check the order via computer because they were having problems with the program. I also noted there was a stack of 3 boxes of checks lying on the desk behind her that had been mailed and returned to the CU.... who knows what's going on. I'm no longer leaving anything except minimal balance in the account.

-- Shelia (shelia@a.com), April 27, 1999.

Dave -

Funny you mention that. Those wunnerful folks at WF sent out an e-mail warning us that they were making some "system upgrades" over the weekend and that we wouldn't be able to access the account until Sunday, 4/25 at 3AM. I was able to call in and get a download late Sunday, so I thought, "No big."

My wife just called me today (Tuesday) to say that she can't get any online sessions to complete. I'll give it a try tonight and report my findings.

*sigh*

-- Mac (sneak@lurk.hid), April 27, 1999.

Remember that the tellers and account reps are paid as little as the bank(any bank) can get by with. Wells Fargo and Norwest are merging, along with the Y2K problems. (watch your money carefully) Same warnings for credit unions. Tellers generally care about their customers, but often don't get the training they need. One bank is not really safer than any other. Just remember to balance that statement and call at the first sign of trouble. If something someone tells you sounds strange, ask for a supervisor. It is the grouchy customer who gets their account corrected if something has gone wrong.

-- L stone (stonie1012@aol.com), April 27, 1999.

FWIW, I had no troubles at all accessing my Wells Fargo online account through this past weekend, or today...

-- Wanda (lonevoice@mailexcite.com), April 28, 1999.

OK, here's the latest:

My problem appears to be caused by Quicken's Online Banking servce provider (Checkfree), not Wells Fargo. Recorded message at Checkfree states that they are "currently experiencing a temporary service outage with the online bill paying services. We expect to have this remedied as soon as possible. Please try to access the service at a later time."

Waited until a rep at Checkfree came on the phone (wasn't too bad - maybe 15 minutes) to get some details. The very polite and rather stressed rep couldn't supply any. No ECD at all (just "ASAP"), no info as to nature of outage ("something wrong with the network"), not even a good idea when the outage started (best he could say was "over the weekend sometime"). Not a sausage.

I would hate to be working in tech support at Quicken, Wells Fargo, or Checkfree right now. The first two groups are getting a mess o' calls which rightly should be going direct to Checkfree, and the Checkfree reps have no good answer. Not a pretty sight.

Hey, I thought all these computer problems only took a few hours to fix, not two days and counting. Checkfree needs to hire Paul Davis, Stephen Poole, and Howard Bellasco; they'll get this straightened out pronto! 8-}]

Oh, and might want to sell CKFR, folks. They gonna have some serious bad press if this doesn't get fixed in the next day or so...

-- Mac (sneak@lurk.hid), April 28, 1999.

"Intuit Online Held Hostage -- Day Four":

Still no-go as of 10:00AM Pacific. Tech Support at Checkfree for Quicken (and MS Money, they say) has a pre-recorded message, saying "We're working very hard and will have it fixed just as soon as we can."

I still think they need to hire Paul or Stephen... 8-}]

-- Mac (sneak@lurk.hid), April 29, 1999.

Thread will continue here: Online Banking and Y2K

-- Mac (sneak@lurk.hid), April 29, 1999.