UPDATE: On Sunday BB&T said in a statement published on the company’s Facebook page that its “systems have substantially recovered. Our online and mobile banking platforms, automated Phone24 service and ATMs are available. We are still working through a few issues for some of our clients and will be providing additional guidance through Secure Messages within our U online and mobile banking apps. We can also assist you at 800-BANK-BBT (800-226-5228). Thank you for your continued patience and we are deeply sorry for the inconvenience this event has caused. If you’ve incurred fees directly related to this outage, we will waive or reimburse those fees. We’re also here to assist with any other challenges you’ve experienced. You can always find the latest information on BBT.com.” The company has not specified what type of equipment malfunction caused the large-scale outage, however it has continued to state that cyber-hacking played no role in it.
Local customers of BB&T–a bank with branches in Hellertown, Bethlehem, Coopersburg and beyond–woke up Friday morning to learn that they may not be able to access the money in their accounts due to what the company describes as “a technical issue within our system.”
The BB&T branch on Main Street in Hellertown
The company-wide system failure is affecting millions of customers in every state in which BB&T operates.
According to a company statement posted on BBT.com, “many of BB&T’s banking services remain unavailable this morning, including online banking, mobile banking app, ATMs and our automated Phone24 service. While you can still use your BB&T debit, credit and prepaid cards, we do understand this is causing a major inconvenience for so many of you and our teams are continuing to work diligently to restore your services. If you’ve incurred any fees or experienced any issues directly related to this outage, we will work with you to address those issues as our systems come back online. Thank you so much for your patience and we will continue to provide updates here and on BB&T’s Facebook and Twitter pages.”
“At this time we have no reason to believe this issue is related to cybersecurity,” the company added.
On the company’s Facebook page, confusion and anger were evident in hundreds of comments posted by frustrated customers.
“This is so frustrating. I need to just check my balance & can’t even do that.
So I called & the rep on the other end tells me they don’t have access to any of my information at this time. Really??” commented Marilyn Williams.
“I need to get gas for my commute this morning,” commented Anna Cardwell. “Are you going to extend your branch banking hours to Saturday as a result of this nonsense or will your bank close for the weekend as if nothing happened? Its been over 12 hours with no branch access, no phone or atm acces, and no online banking access.”
The company representatives responding to the comments on Facebook could do little more than apologize and reassure customers that the situation is being addressed, although no timeline for a resolution has been provided.
In a post published late Thursday on Facebook, the company said “we’ve identified the issue and are working to resolve it.”
At the Hellertown branch Thursday, the bank’s system reportedly went down at around 4 p.m. Customers had to be turned away by tellers as they entered the lobby.
One man muttered “unbelievable” as he swiftly exited the branch.
Are you a BB&T customer? Tell us what you think about the outage in a comment.
