The TSB IT meltdown has entered its third week, with the beleaguered bank saying “progress is being made” amid fears that a full service may not return for months.
The bank continues to be deluged by customers reporting long call-waiting times, frustration at delays in dealing with stolen cards, and money transfers failing to go through.
One customer, ‘Gaz_TFBS’ said on Twitter that he had rung each day over four successive days but despite waiting 25 minutes each time, no one answered.
WORST CUSTOMER SERVICE POSSIBLE! @TSB on the phone now for the last 4 days for over 25minutes each time and still no one answers! All I want to do is find out when my payment is due! (No statement received) Will not be advising anyone to open an account with these jokers! FUMING
— Gaz_TFBS (@Gaz_TFBS) May 6, 2018
Another, Hazel Allen, said she had spent two hours and 40 minutes waiting to speak to TSB’s fraud team, while customer Mark Appleby said a money transfer between accounts had failed.
I cannot spend another 2 hours 40 mins waiting for tsb fraud to answer their phone and start the process of getting all my money back. Why can't tsb ring me as they have cut me off twice now??? @TSB
— Hazel Allen (@Hazela2) May 6, 2018
@TSB I managed to get into my account last night and transferred some money to my other account. The money has not gone through. Your paying the fees. I’m not as it’s you causing it. This is ridiculous now
— Mark Appleby (@mamarkappleby) May 6, 2018
All TSB customers remain unable to view their mortgage accounts on mobile devices or home computers, while some customers are also having problems viewing information about their next credit card payment.
It said that while payments through TSB’s mobile app and internet banking are available, some customers were still seeing an error message.
TSB said it was unable to put a date on when the persistent bugs and outages will finally be fixed, despite hiring IBM specialists to fix the problems.
A spokeswoman said: “Everyone at TSB is working around the clock to fix the issues (including this bank holiday weekend). And progress is being made.
“On the time frames more broadly, we’re not in a position to confirm how long things may take but crucially our focus is getting things back to normal for our customers as soon as possible across. And also ensuring that no customer is left out of pocket as a result of these issues.”
Last week, during a bruising evidence session before the Treasury select committee, TSB chief executive Paul Pester and the bank’s chairman, Richard Meddings, said they had received 40,000 complaints about the outage but did not know exactly how many of the bank’s 1.9 million online customers had been affected.
Meddings told MPs that Pester had volunteered to give up a £2m bonus associated with the migration to a new IT system, hinting that other executives could also have their bonuses slashed. But Pester could still receive up to £1.3m in other bonuses for 2018, on top of a further £1.3m in basic pay, benefits and pension contributions.
The accountancy firm Deloitte is advising on the bank’s compensation strategy, and the City law firm Slaughter and May is to investigate the cause. The bank is also bracing itself for a regulatory fine, with a team from the Financial Conduct Authority inside TSB monitoring developments.
