TSB planned outage

ValiantSon

Robisere wrote: »

Managed to get up to date statement printed out, despite being told that my login details were incorrect twice: entered same details carefully and logged in. Tried to make a payment and the system crashed again. Logged in again, told my details are incorrect again. Logged me in anyway. Slow, so slow.

This is a definite fustercluck: thank you whoever came out with that one. I cannot imagine how much custom this will lose you, TSB. I may be one, when the smoke clears.

And I shall to continue to object* to the loss of a vital service which prevents me from making transactions. I don't live in the 2nd or 3rd world, I live in a society which offers services that allow me to see the money I earn and operate my banking so that I can exist financially. Telling me that I am better off than others in the world, is akin to the parents who used to tell their kids to eat their greens, "because there are people starving in Africa/India/wherever."

You don't believe in the third world???? Wow, time to do some reading! You live in an incredibly priviliged and wealthy society.

Your analogy is false. I am saying that the problems you (and I) have experienced in accessing accounts is a minor irritation, not a major problem worthy of anger and outrage. This is not the same as conflating not eating all of your dinner because others are starving. There is a very clear distinction between these two ideas. Get a sense of proportion!

Robisere wrote: »

Yes, I have a sense of entitlement: because I am entitled to believe the promises of a commercial organisation which has singularly and publicly failed to keep those promises.

Why are you entitled to this? A company, whom you pay nothing for their services, has faced an overrun on a massive IT project. If you suffer a financial loss as a result of the overrun you will be reimbursed and almost certainly given a goodwill payment for your inconvenience. This is hardly the worst thing to happen. Your sense of entitlement is disproportionate.

Robisere wrote: »

*Object - to poor service. Not moan and gripe. Any more Victorian lessons for us?

How is this a Victorian lesson? Selfishness and solipsism are issues of today.

ValiantSon

glider3560 wrote: »

I guess it depends what situation you are currently in.

I have several current accounts and several savings accounts, so TSB being inaccessible isn't much of a problem for me.

However, if I only had accounts with TSB and needed to pay a bill urgently, then I would be very bothered. Examples could be people being unable to move house (renters) because they cannot transfer the money for the deposit/rent, getting late payment charges on a credit card, having the ability to pay council tax monthly withdrawn, etc etc. If you're already on the breadline, then this IT failure could make your situation even worse.

People were able to plan around the advance warning, with the expectation that everything would be back to normal on Monday. This was not the case, and people have the right to be angry.

I work in IT, BTW. I would be very unhappy if I let this system go into production in this state. I'd expect to have many dry runs before committing to releasing this publicly.

As I, and others, have repeatedly pointed out, you can access telephone and branch banking, so there is a service. Your point, therefore, is moot.

Yorkshire_Pud

Unfortunately there's a tranche of society that really believes that life begins and ends with the Internet and won't consider alternatives. A very de skilled and useless bunch:)

Spreadsheetman

Wow - it's still broken, I thought they would have got it sorted by now. Part of the change has been to switch to a much more javascript-based platform and it's spewing errors left right and centre when observed in the browser web console.

HSBC did a similar platform technology change a while back, but it was much better handled. There were a few problems with some browsers (Firefox), but they were fixed very quickly.

EachPenny

Robisere wrote: »

And I shall to continue to object* to the loss of a vital service which prevents me from making transactions. I don't live in the 2nd or 3rd world, I live in a society which offers services that allow me to see the money I earn and operate my banking so that I can exist financially. Telling me that I am better off than others in the world, is akin to the parents who used to tell their kids to eat their greens, "because there are people starving in Africa/India/wherever."

Yes, I have a sense of entitlement: because I am entitled to believe the promises of a commercial organisation which has singularly and publicly failed to keep those promises.

I have a vague feeling the T&C's for online banking make it clear it is an 'extra' service and its availablity is not guaranteed.

There are also various clauses which allow them to stop the service if they are concerned that account security, fraud, or any number of other things is happening, or might happen.

Although they might have promised to complete the upgrade by 6pm on Sunday, the T&C's give them plenty of lattitude to withdraw the service for longer (or again) if they believe it cannot be provided securely, or there is a risk of fraud.

But if internet banking is a vital service then you might need to look at other solutions, because TSB are not promising it will always be available when you need it.

Herbalus

ValiantSon wrote: »

Not really. The point I am making is that this is a small inconvenience and not some great outrage.

As I've already pointed out, customers can still use telephone banking and access banking through the branch network. It may be less convenient, but it is hardly worthy of such anger: mild irritation, yes, but anger, no.

I think where you and I differ is that I dont see the outrage. I see the mild irritation, probably from the same posts funnily enough.

Hence I didnt see the sense in bringing first world problems et al into it. That, im sure you will agree, is a tad over the top for mild irritation. But probably not for outrage

I think the disagreement started when somebody said they should have fixed it by now. That seems sensible, and not angry.

But anyway. Enough for tonight!

PixelPound

TSB isn't an internet based bank, but a high street one that has omni channel access which includes mobile and internet. Surely its better that they get it right than wrong - you have to remember most organisations have some aspect of live debugging to allow tweaking. They probably should have had a crossover or allow people to opt in for the new system for a few weeks whilst they confirm bugs are ironed out before full roll out.

skcollobcat10

Question answered

molerat

Milarky wrote: »

I used to be able to modify my account descriptons (I can know this b/c they aren't what TSB would have originally set them to) Their changes seem to have caused one description "(Platinum MasterCard)" to omit the closing bracket, which now appears redundent. SO I was looking for the "change account description" (or whatever) feature but haven't been able. (Is it still around?)

Mine is Platinum (MasterCard.

Still there under "Manage accounts" ............. but it doesn't work - it lets you rename the account but comes up with "Service temporarily unavailable"

tbones1957

latest message on internet banking says they expect it to be accessible by the end of April. So another week then!