Commonwealth Bank deposits $50 into customers’ accounts after outage
Check your bank accounts, you may have a gift to make up for the Commonwealth Bank outage. Here’s how to ensure you get paid.
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The system outage only lasted a few hours but it has cost the Commonwealth Bank up to $7.5 million after some customers went without payments through the weekend.
The country’s biggest bank has transferred $50 to up to 150,000 customers impacted with a simple message in the “transaction details”: “Sorry from CBA”.
Commonwealth Bank initially said the issue, which affected money transfer and online services, lasted a 12 hour period Thursday night and was back up and running on Friday.
But tens of thousands of customers went without payments through the weekend, the major lender confirmed to news.com.au.
“Following the outage impacting our systems in recent days, we have made significant progress in processing the outstanding payments,” a spokesperson from the company said in a statement.
“We now believe funds should be in customer accounts. If customers have any issues or questions regarding their payments they should contact our call centre or visit us in branch so we can assist.
“We are now refunding fees and charges associated to the network issue on Thursday for our customers who were impacted by this issue.”
(1/2) Update 10.00AM. We now believe funds should be in customer accounts. If anyone has any issues or questions regarding their payments please contact 132221 or visit us in branch so we can assist.
— CommBank (@CommBank) October 21, 2019
(2/2) We are now refunding fees and charges associated to the network issue on Thursday for our customers who were impacted by this issue.
— CommBank (@CommBank) October 21, 2019
We are very sorry for the inconvenience to everyone who has been affected by the delay.
HOW TO CLAIM THE $50
Commonwealth Bank said it had already made payments into the necessary accounts and won’t be contacting customers asking for details to process payments.
“If a customer is approached for their account details they should not provide this and the customer should let us know by phoning our call centre or visiting us in branch,” the spokesperson said.
“We apologise to everyone who has been affected by the delay in payments and we are very sorry for the inconvenience it has caused.”
On Thursday, Pay ID and BPAY services in the bank app and cardless cash were unavailable, along with some in branch services and call centres.
The bank has said some customers reported issues with their debit card payments.
“Due to this incident some of our branches have temporarily closed,” the bank said in a tweet at the time.
“We are urgently working to resolve this issue and we’re very sorry for the inconvenience. Our ATM and Point-Of-Sale merchant terminals remain available and working.”
Customers started reporting issues at about 11.45am on Thursday, with thousands across the country saying they were unable to access their funds.
An update from Commonwealth Bank at 12:30pm then confirmed a range of their services had been impacted.
“We are currently experiencing an issue affecting some of our services. We are urgently investigating this and we’re sorry for any inconvenience caused,” it said.
@CommBank I'm getting errors from netbank. Transfers fail and SSO to ComSec fails. pic.twitter.com/oNc9fGrVvS
— RabbitFishFrog (@rabbitfishfrog) October 17, 2019
But at 11pm, the bank said it was still working to fix the network issues.
“We are working overnight to restore services as soon as we can,” it said.
Customers took to Twitter to air their frustrations, with many claiming they had been stuck unable to pay for lunch.
“Just as I’m about to get some funds out of my netbank saver to my debiting account so I can pay for upcoming lunch..grrr,” another user wrote.
“Hopefully it’s fixed soon. Might be a cheap lunch, as I only have 5 dollars on me now. Shall check later,” one said.
Another added: “Whelp, I’m leaving Commbank. Out of fuel at a petrol station and can’t transfer to pay for it. Thanks guys.”
Did you receive a payment from CBA? Comment below @James_P_Hall | or get in touch at james.hall1@news.com.au
Originally published as Commonwealth Bank deposits $50 into customers’ accounts after outage