Customers of one of Ireland’s biggest banks were able to withdraw money they did not have on Tuesday , for a period of time due to a technical issue.
The Bank of Ireland’s app and website had a now-fixed bug that allowed users to transfer up to €1,000 ($1,090.20) to a digital account and then withdraw that amount from an ATM even if there were insufficient funds in their accounts, according to local media.
The BOI apologized for the incident, which resulted in queues forming as people rushed to find ways to exploit the problem and also prevented some customers from accessing their accounts.
The bank cautioned customers, however, that any funds transferred or withdrawn “over normal limits… will be debited from their account”.
The bank posted a statement on social media on Wednesday saying “we sincerely apologize for the disruption this outage caused — we know it fell far below the standards our customers expect from us”, adding that services had now resumed as normal.
Police in Ireland claimed to be aware of the problem but advised the general public that personal banking was “their personal responsibility”.
People began airing their complaints online because they had no idea what to do.
“Haven’t been able to access my account all day which is ridiculous. How are people meant to buy food or other necessities if our cards won’t even work or [we] can’t check our bank balances?!” one customer posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Another person posted that they were out of the country and had been without access to their funds or app all day.
Customers were informed by the BOI that “overnight payments to accounts may appear throughout the day.”
The BOI has had technical issues in the past as well.
A few customers brought up on Tuesday that the Irish lender had problems in June and had to cut back on some services.
Source-CNN
