back to article Bank of Ireland outage sees customers queue for 'free' cash – or maybe any cash

Queues have formed at automatic teller machines in Ireland after a local bank allowed withdrawals of sums greater than their account balances, and possibly even mistakenly gave away free cash. The incident appears to have started life as an outage that Bank of Ireland acknowledged late on Tuesday night in social media posts …

  1. wolfetone Silver badge

    If the banks wanted some good PR, they could just say "Look, we remember when you all bailed us out in 2008. And times are harder now than they were then. So just take the money as a sign of our gratitude to what you've done for us."

    But then I remember it's a bank.

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      If you were one of those who didn't overdraw you might be wondering where the bank was going to get the money to balance its books and whether some of it might be yours.

      1. 43300 Silver badge

        Banks can create money out of thin air - as they do every time they issue a mortgage.

        1. John 62

          The bank issues a mortgage and gives that money to the house vendor because they expect it all back. With interest. On pain of eviction.

          And the interest rate the bank charges depends on the how confident investors are that the government will pay back its gilts, i.e. the bank can be said to be creating money out of thin air because they expect the supply of money to increase. It's a long time since lower 6th when I did GCSE accounting, so someone else can probably give a better answer.

          1. 43300 Silver badge

            Yes, I know - but the point is that fiat currencies aren't actually backed by anything tangible. For a more extreme example see 'quantitative easing', where the central bank magics up some more money - There was far too much of this 2020 and the resulting inflation is now really hitting!

            1. TeeCee Gold badge
              Meh

              Too true. However, you should see what proper economists have to say about the idea of using capital spend to avoid/reduce inflation. The level of doom forecast from taking that approach is, quite frankly, terrifying.

              Put it this way. The last government to go full on down that road was Germany. In the late 1930s. At least they had a plan to invade Poland and stick the economy on a war footing when it all went titsup on them.

              1. xyz Silver badge

                Off topic...

                I've been on this site for years and I'd never seen a gold badge until now (TeeCee above). I ask myself, is there a also black badge like the gold and black daleks?

              2. CrazyOldCatMan Silver badge

                invade Poland and stick the economy on a war footing

                Except they didn't (put the country on a war footing that is) - right up until more-or-less the end of the war they kept stuff at a normal level. Unlike us and the USSR..

                The US didn't go onto a war footing really either - they had enough capacity to make all the stuff they needed without having to.

                1. John Stirling

                  Still off topic - war footing

                  Nazi Germany put the economy on a war footing almost immediately they were in charge - at least 5 years before the war. By the time of the war military spending was the largest component of the economy by far, mainly funded by debt taken on pre war. I think I'd argue that the US absolutely shifted to a war footing - although perhaps not to the same extent that we did, or indeed the USSR. War related production in the USA was 40% of gross national product at the end of the war.

                2. rafff

                  "The US didn't go onto a war footing really either"

                  The US has been pretty well continuously at war since its independence, apart from a couple of years. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_United_States

            2. Duffaboy

              Inflation has many causes

              Supplier and retailer greed.

              Short supply of goods

              War in Ukraine.

              We see recently that many super markets and Energy suppliers making Bumper profits, why is this ?

              They ramped up prices way further than needed thus fueling inflation, this then has a trickle down affect to the lowest point i.e. us the consumer

              1. David Hicklin Silver badge

                Re: Inflation has many causes

                >> They ramped up prices way further than needed thus fueling inflation

                A lot of this is down to the broken energy markers and where if you really need something in the future and there is a *fear* if not having enough to go around, then the price just goes up and up....

            3. jmch Silver badge

              "fiat currencies aren't actually backed by anything tangible"

              They're backed by the "good faith" of the issuing government, implicitly backed by the tax revenues of that government, which is backstopped by the unstated-but-very-much-there possibility of the government using coercive force to collect taxes (ie pay taxes or go to jail). So yes, strictly speaking not tangible, and a country can't just issue an infinite amount of money - it can issue an amount that creditors feel is credibly within the possibilities of that country.

            4. jmch Silver badge

              "There was far too much of this 2020 and the resulting inflation is now really hitting!"

              Technically "inflation" means "increasing the money supply". Increased prices / cost of living is a result of inflation, to the extent that in popular language they are used interchangeably, but they are not exactly the same thing. Particularly cost of living increases can also be caused by other things. Specifically in the last year, cost of living has increased partly because of inflation (covid money-printing in 2020), partly because of covid supply-chain disruptions, and partly because of fuel/energy cost spikes at the beginning of the Ukraine invasion by Russia.

              Increasing of interest rates has already curbed cost-of-living increases in the US, not quite yet in Europe particularly UK

        2. MatthewSt Silver badge

          Banks issue mortgages with the money that other customers have got in deposit / savings accounts. That's why even though the base rate is going up in the UK, the savings rates are taking a while to catch up because the changes don't affect anyone who's already on a cheaper fixed mortgage.

          1. Stork

            Depending on country, some banks issue bonds with maturities matching the mortgages. That way the maturity problem is passed on.

            In Denmark the link is even more direct: when you take out a mortgage (up to 80% of assessed property value), bonds are issued and you pay the interest of the day for the next 20 or 30 years, plus 0.5-0.9% to cover admin and defaults.

            Obviously there are more details, but the bonds are AAA and have not defaulted since creation in the late 18th century.

            1. Roland6 Silver badge

              >” but the bonds are AAA”

              Seem to remember some other property based bonds/investments with AAA rating that caused a small problem back in 2007; because large numbers of mortgage holders were unable to pay the “Interest of the day”, demanded by their lender who thought exploitative mortgage arrangements were okay…

              1. jmch Silver badge

                "because large numbers of mortgage holders were unable to pay the “Interest of the day”"

                That's what happens when banks issue mortgages of 100% of assessed property value or even higher to people who they know can't afford to pay them back, and securitise them as low-risk when in fact they were very high-risk. What the previous poster said they do in Denmark at 80% of assessed property value means there is much less risk.

                1. Stork

                  Also, as in most European countries, just because you hand the house keys to your mortgage lender doesn’t mean you don’t owe them money. It’s quite hard to get debt wiped, which as I understand it is not the case in the USA.

              2. David Hicklin Silver badge

                > some other property based bonds/investments with AAA rating that caused a small problem back in 2007

                The problem there was that a load of sub-prime mortgages were bundled up with the AAA rated stuff and which was traded as AAA stuff when really it was not

          2. cantankerous swineherd
          3. Will code

            Not strictly true. Banks issue mortgages based on savings (and other assets) they hold BUT they can issue more than that. They do actually ‘create’ money whenever doing this.

            It’s a bit of a mind bender that this is both possible and also not entirely crazy.

        3. doublelayer Silver badge

          In some areas of economics, it is convenient to consider lending money as creating it and the paying back of a loan as destroying it. It's the same simplification that means we teach Newtonian physics even though we could start in with the changes that have been made to it even when they're not important at the scale we're teaching. However, outside that area of study, including in other parts of economics, it doesn't work like that.

          Banks don't create money when they back a loan. They take on an asset with speculative value, which they can only do as they have the liabilities (deposits) to cover it. Central banks which have control over the supply of currency do have the power to create or destroy money, but individual retail banks do not have that power. The last time it worked like that, things went wrong really fast; each bank simply printed its own money, which meant that, as soon as one bank manager realized that this would go wrong, resulted in that manager printing and spending as much as they could. There's a reason we have national currencies now.

          1. Roland6 Silver badge

            >” Banks don't create money when they back a loan.”

            Depends on what you mean by “money”, as banks do create “ money”, by leverage. In the UK typically only 10 percent of monies lent by a single bank are backed with assets held at the BoE. Hence when the BoE increased base rate by .25 percentage points, the interest on a mortgage should only have gone up by .025 percentage points; banks, being banks put mortgage rates up by .25 points and pocketed the .225 points difference which went straight to their bottom line and bonuses…

            1. doublelayer Silver badge

              Yes, banks make money by charging more in interest and pocketing it. That is not money creation. That is taking more money from some people and giving it to them. The creation by leverage construct is what I was talking about in my last comment. It's a convenient model when creating some graphs, but it's not what happened. That money hasn't been created out of nothing, later to be destroyed. It has been borrowed from a depositor, later to be paid back. This is obvious when you consider the other possibilities: if it is not paid back, they don't have as much money as they started with. They have lost money that their depositors gave them and will need to deal with this in some way, whether that's making less profit, taking out an insurance contract, or going bankrupt. They have only moved money because they cannot create it.

              1. jmch Silver badge

                "That money hasn't been created out of nothing, later to be destroyed. It has been borrowed from a depositor, later to be paid back. "

                That is strictly true only if banks are bound to 100% reserve (i.e. they can only lend out as much money as they have in deposits). But in reality banks use fractional reserves, meaning they are allowed to lend out more money than they have deposited. How much exactly is determined by their central bank and/or regulator, but it can be as low as 10%, ie If I deposit £1,000 in a bank, the bank can lend out £10,000 based on that deposit. In that case the £9,000 difference has indeed been "created out of nothing".

                The whole fractional reserve model is based on the (usually correct) assumption that not everybody will want to take their money out at the same time. Unfortunately "usually correct" is very different from "always correct" (which is also why governments set up deposit insurance schemes).

                1. doublelayer Silver badge

                  No, even though it's not backed on a one-to-one basis, it is still owed, not created. For the models I referred to, where we're more interested in what the market as a whole will do, you can treat it like creation. With the banks operating in that market more actively than those models typically do, or especially if you're talking about the bank's own financials, it is still not created. Just because they can take on more loan assets than they have liabilities doesn't mean that they can create them. If they fail, they still have to deal with the loss of that asset in some way, something that would not be necessary if they were creating something out of nothing.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "you might be wondering ... whether some of it might be yours"

        No no... your money is kept in a different shoe box under a different bed

  2. xyz123 Silver badge

    It's a bank. they should just say people can keep the 1000 they withdrew, but they have to give up the souls of their delicious, tasty children to the bank's director board.

    After all, eating children feet first (so they can see the look on the kids face) is what banks REALLY want out of this world.

    1. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge
      Joke

      BoI's unauthorized overdraft rate is somewhere around 35% at the moment, so giving up your firstborn would probably be cheaper.

    2. Dave559

      I have a feeling that someone else may have already come up with something similar to your modest proposal to help impoverished Irish people, some time before now…

  3. Dan 55 Silver badge
    Facepalm

    It's a bank, of course it's not free money

    The only way you're getting free money out of an offline cash machine is if the power fortuitously gets cut before it can talk to the mothership again and maybe not even then.

    Perhaps the only way the bank was remiss is not making "this is not free money" message more blindingly obvious than it already was when the customer puts their card in, by displaying it in flashing red Comic Sans 36 point or something.

    1. Pascal Monett Silver badge

      Re: It's a bank, of course it's not free money

      They don't need to say it.

      It's obvious that any money withdrawn will be money debited from the account and, if you don't actuallw have that money, you'll have to give it back when your account sees the extra money removed.

      It's disheartening to realize that people can still believe that, just because there's a bank error, it's party time.

      No people. There was a bank error. It WILL be corrected.

      If I do ever see some unexpected sum on my bank account, I will wait a few days to be contacted by whomever it was that sent the money. If days, then weeks go by without any contact, then I will cautiously start believing that maybe, just maybe, I can actually keep it.

      But I'm not going to rush the same day or the next to an ATM to extract some of that. It's not mine until I'm sure. And even then, the possibility that someone will come a-knocking to get it back will always loom over that money.

      1. Ian Johnston Silver badge

        Re: It's a bank, of course it's not free money

        The RBS once credited my account with £300 which they said I had withdrawn from a cash machine and not picked up, leaving it to be swallowed again. I was absolutely sure that this did not happen because I was skint at the time, and in the unlikely event that I had withdrawn £300 there would have been a purpose and I would not casually have forgotten it. I told them, and they insisted that they owed me the money. So I took it.

      2. Mage Silver badge
        Coat

        Re: It's a bank, of course it's not free money

        If it's a very large sum of money you may be arrested and asked to explain how you got it?

      3. hayzoos

        Re: It's a bank, of course it's not free money

        I guess that I am less impatient than you. The local sewage authority offers a 5% discount if an account is paid a year in advance. This is available any time but rate increases (far and few) make the account credit diminish faster but the discount is given up front. Once a relative decided they were going to help financially by paying for a year of my sewage bill anonymously. I noticed the credit right away, but continued to pay my regular amount waiting for the correction of the assumed error. It was well over two years before my wife had found out somehow and confirmed that it was not an error. I then allowed the credit balance to do it's thing. Of course, during that "year" of credit balance a rare rate increase took effect. Since rate increases have happened only a couple of times in the 25 years I have lived here, it seems they may be on a decade cycle.

        1. JimboSmith

          Re: It's a bank, of course it's not free money

          During lockdown I was supporting my parents and not living at home. My energy supplier was still taking the same direct debit every month for both the Gas and the Electricity. When I eventually got home and through the mountain of post there were letters from said energy company. They were demanding a meter reading over several letters and telling me that if my account is underpaid they could in certain circumstances demand the entire amount owing immediately.

          However having done meter readings they were way off in the wrong direction and I had significantly overpaid. I called up and quoted the readings which the woman on the other end said didn’t sound right. I explained that I hadn’t been at home for x months and the weather had been exceptionally mild. So that explained the lower than expected readings but I’d send pictures if needed. She said that I was significantly in credit and needed no further payment. Regarding that overpayment I said I could in certain circumstances demand the entire amount owing to me immediately.

          She said she’d send it to another department and they would be in touch about the cash owed. After a couple of weeks they refunded me minus that months payment.

          1. David Nash

            Re: It's a bank, of course it's not free money

            "in certain circumstances demand the entire amount owing to me immediately."

            I believe in the UK this is almost any circumstances. Provided the credit balance is in excess of what's needed (or estimated) to cover the expected usage, they have to give it back to you.

      4. jmch Silver badge
        Happy

        Re: It's a bank, of course it's not free money

        "... people can still believe that, just because there's a bank error, it's party time."

        I blame Monopoly!

    2. heyrick Silver badge

      Re: It's a bank, of course it's not free money

      Doesn't work like that. The cash machine debits the account and then prepares the cash, so a power cut means you're triply screwed (no cash and no cash and no evidence to show you didn't get the cash).

      Ask me how I know... Grrr...

      1. 43300 Silver badge

        Re: It's a bank, of course it's not free money

        I didn't know that for a fact, but had always assume that is how it would work. This is banks we are talking about - their systems are ALWAYS designed to favour them in every situation imaginable!

        1. Spazturtle Silver badge

          Re: It's a bank, of course it's not free money

          They have an internal printer in them that prints out a log, that spool will be changed when they refill the cash machine and be sent of to be scanned so they can verify all the transactions. So if the ATM doesn't give you your money then your account should eventually be refunded.

      2. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge

        Re: It's a bank, of course it's not free money

        A friend once asked a cash machine for £200, it whirred and clicked and then said that it only had £160 left, and would that be OK. He pressed confirm, took his £160, but when he got his statement saw that the originally requested £200 had been debited.

        The bank flatly denied that it was possible, but he had the receipt showing the £160 issued, and insisted they check the transaction references. He got his £40 back.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: It's a bank, of course it's not free money

        You *should* end up ok if the machine doesn't dispense the cash. At some point (daily? weekly) the bank will balance the machine. They start that interval with $x in the ATM, their records say it dispensed $y, if the money remaining in the machine doesn't equal $x-$y, they have a discrepancy to resolve.

        Worked out for me once. The old ATMs in my area used to shoot the bills out of a slot an into a shallow pocket in the machine. One Friday afternoon, I stopped at the ATM to withdraw $60 (enough for a poor college student to have an ok weekend). The machine spit out two $20 bills, then paused (perhaps changing which cartridge it was using).

        Not realizing there was more cash to come, I reached in to grab the bills. Right as I did so, the last $20 flew out, hit my thumb, and bounced directly back into the ATM. The door over the cash slot snapped shut and the receipt printed out.

        Transaction said complete, my receipt said $60, I figured I was screwed out of the cash.

        Monday afternoon, I walked into the bank and explained what happened to a teller. The teller referred me to a banker. When I told him the story he chuckled, stood up and yelled over his cubicle wall "hey Fred, I found out where that $20 came from".

        Truns out that ATM had a "bucket" to catch bills when things go wrong. That morning, their machine was out of balance by $20, and there was $20 in the bucket.

        Said $20, sealed in an envelope, was shortly handed off to me.

        (Wells Fargo, before they turned greedy).

      4. David Nash

        Re: It's a bank, of course it's not free money

        Surely these things use distributed transactional processing. All or nothing.

        1. heyrick Silver badge

          Re: It's a bank, of course it's not free money

          There's always likely to be a moment between authorising the transaction and the cash arriving. Yes, it would be fairer to count the cash, give it, and then mark it as deducted. But that might mean that if the fault happens at exactly that moment (god forbid they hook up a UPS to it), the bank might lose.

          Banks do not lose. We lose and we have to argue that loss.

          1. heyrick Silver badge

            Re: It's a bank, of course it's not free money

            "Banks do not lose. We lose"

            I'll give you another example. Petrol stations in France (it's where I live so it's what I'm familiar with). They're all automatic these days.

            Insert your card, it will accept your transaction and say you can withdraw some stupid amount of fuel (often around €145). If your bank shows the actual state of your card limits, this will show up as €145 less. In "a while" (usually a day or two, more if public holidays) it is corrected and the proper amount shown as being deducted.

            This bit me once as after buying something expensive, I stopped to get petrol but the pump wasn't working. I hung it up, got a ticket for €0. Went to the next station, had my card refused as too much used in one day.

            So, two questions. What happens to this money in the meantime, and why can't the petrol pumps, after dispensing the liquid, contact the bank to say exactly how much to debit?

            Draw your own conclusions...

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: It's a bank, of course it's not free money

      by displaying it in flashing red Comic Sans 36 point or something.

      That would only work on designers.

      :)

    4. Ken Moorhouse Silver badge

      Re: "this is not free money"

      A lot of ATM's have a big notice above them saying "Free Cash".

    5. GruntyMcPugh

      Re: It's a bank, of course it's not free money

      Many years ago, I got an extra fiver (yeah that long ago, when you could withdraw £5) I asked for £10, and between two of the £5 notes, was a folded fiver, I guess it somehow didn't get counted, I presume they detect the edges. But then I wondered if it was even accounted for going into the machine if they used the same method. So I stopped worrying, and went to the pub.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Funny that it only ever works one way

    Error in your favour: give it a few msec before they discover it, and the police may get involved

    Error in their favour: you're in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike. Good luck finding anyone even willing to acknowledge you exist and have an account let alone are owed something. Oh, and that Banking Ombudsman? Guess who pays him?

    They screw up in volume: say bye bye to your taxes as they will be used to continue funding bonuses.

    1. Cian_

      Re: Funny that it only ever works one way

      The Irish FSPO (ombudsman equivalent) is funded by a compulsory levy so its not like they need to keep the banks happy to get it. My one complaint that needed the FSPO was resolved rapidly by a [s]bribe to go away[/s], sorry, an ex-gratia payment for the trouble caused.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Funny that it only ever works one way

        That was not my experience with an incident involving the Highly Suspect Banking Crooks..

  5. myxiplx2

    Nice earner for a bank

    Honestly if people are going to be this dumb, banks should start doing this as standard.

    "Accidentally" add £10k to a few thousand accounts, wait for people to be dumb enough to withdraw more than they have. Voila, instant overdrafts and interest payments for years.

    I am a little amazed that people think they can go to a camera equipped cash machine, log in to their own bank account, and take money without a bank knowing about it.

  6. Christoph

    Monopoly money

    Bank error in your favour. Collect £1,000.

    1. Korev Silver badge
      Coat

      Re: Monopoly money

      I'm pleased you were able to get that off your Community Chest

      1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: Monopoly money

        Without turning on the Waterworks.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Monopoly money

          I think they were taking a chance

          1. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge

            Re: Monopoly money

            And may have to go directly to jail.

    2. doublelayer Silver badge

      Re: Monopoly money

      Oh, that can definitely happen, but not because the bank accidentally credited you £1k. Generally, that experience will start with the bank making lots of errors with your account, locking you out, sending your money off, all for completely spurious reasons that you can prove incorrect. Then, as a way of saying "please don't sue us", they give you some compensation for the damage caused. It ends up being in your favor, but it doesn't start that way.

  7. renniks

    One person that made cash on the whole thing was the one I heard was charging €50 to take people to the nearest ATM!

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Obviously heard that the people who really made money in a gold rush were those selling shovels.

      1. GBE

        Shovels, food, and clothing

        In 1853 a Bavarian immigrant named Levi Strauss opened a dry goods store in the midst of the California gold rush selling supplies to prospectors. You know what product later made him famous...

        1. CrazyOldCatMan Silver badge

          Re: Shovels, food, and clothing

          You know what product later made him famous...

          Pickaxes?

          :-)

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Shovels, food, and clothing

          The rivet!

          1. GBE

            Re: The rivet!

            Exactly.

            Though, IIRC, the invention of Levi's jeans (with seams reiforced by rivets key points) didn't happen until after the gold rush (in California) was over.

  8. Bebu
    Big Brother

    Whose money?

    A tv parody of 1980s AU bank commercial:

    Eastpac (hypothetical bank): We never forget that its *our* money.

    (The comedian removed a single 'y')

  9. Miss Config
    Thumb Down

    Bank of Ireland Incompetent ?

    I am shocked, SHOCKED that Bank of Ireland, of all banks, could actually have a bug in its system.

    Almost a year ago I tried to open a current account with Bank of Ireland via their website.

    I answered a lot of the usual questions about name, address etc. and thought I was at least NEAR the end.

    Then I got 'System Error'. End of story.

    Nobody called me back to help correct their errors or anything.

    I concluded that the bank was completely unaware of the fact that I had failed to open an account.

    So which is worse ? That there is a bug in the system OR that the bank is completely unaware of that bug.

    Goodness knows how many OTHER people failed to open an account likewise.

    The good news for me is that my knowledge of their incompetence tells me that NOT having an account with them is best for me.

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: Bank of Ireland Incompetent ?

      If there was a system error how would they know you tried to set up an account and failed or who you were to get back in touch with you?

      1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

        Re: Bank of Ireland Incompetent ?

        Have they explained how this is all the fault of the Brits ?

        1. pdebarra

          Re: Bank of Ireland Incompetent ?

          That doesn't need any explanation. It's taken as read.

  10. adam 40
    Happy

    Bank error in MY favour

    HSBC gave be £800 over 10 years ago (and also they have since closed the account due to their incompetence.)

    I just kept quiet and they never asked for it back. It did make up for their overcharging over the years. Result!

    1. Goat Boy

      Re: Bank error in MY favour

      In June I got a text from my bank to the effect of "We've made an error on your account but it's fixed now. Sorry for any inconvenience".

      Thought - Ok whatever.

      Checked my account a day or so later and the 'mistake' was that they'd credited my account to the tune of £5,000,000,000,000.

      Then, rather annoyingly took it straight back out.

      But at least for a minute or two in June I was a multi-trillionaire and by a very long margin the richest pesron on the planet.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Phantom withdrawals

    A few decades ago you'd hear regular complaints about phantom withdrawals where people insisted they had not take the cash out.

    What you heard less of for obvious reasons were stories like the following. A friend of mine once decided to check his balance on a whim, despite knowing that he was only a few quid in credit. Instead the machine told him he had a couple of hundred - so he took it.

  12. Simon Rockman

    This sounds like North Korean Hackers

    Cosmos Bank of India was hacked by the North Korean Lazarus group - a hack known as "jackpotting" which had just the same scenario. They made off with $14m from ATMs around the world, all within a few hours. Just handling the cash was an impressive feat. Details here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3ct5fby

    The spokesperson for Cosmos said that they recovered all the money from legitimate customers who took advantage of the ATMs spewing cash. When I heard that I suspected a whiff of Mandy Rice Davies.

  13. Lost in Cyberspace

    Poor old Bank of Ireland

    The customer(s) will ultimately pay, though.

    During the financial crisis they were quick to hike my UK mortgage SVR by 2% relative to the base rate, and blame in on the crisis. It's never gone back down.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Once upon a time

    In the 70's, in the Netherlands, an older colleague told me, when MQ was in it's early days and ATMs were first being deployed, a certain bank did let them pump out cash if they lost connection. They didn't want to discourage customers from adopting them so they'd rather a few customers get free money than tell their neighbours they were robbed by the ATM.

    1. Alan Bourke

      Re: Once upon a time

      I remember a thing in the 80s or early 90s where the ATMs were online but propagating transaction information around was slow. So if you had a 200.00 daily withdrawal limit you could take that out, then sprint to another nearby ATM and do it again, because the mothership hadn't been updated yet.

  15. bregister

    Again

    so I won't be able to access my account for a day or so every 6 weeks.

    Last big 1 day+ outage was 30-Jun-2023.

    How many 9's uptime is that?

    How many billions did we bail out those *'s for in 2007 again?

    I laughted at my friends to went to the branch and withdrew enough to live on for 3 months.

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