TSB planned outage

realaledrinker

Herbalus wrote: »

Not a nailed on certainty.

This system is designed by a Spanish bank. I have experience of a few of these, and I can tell you it is not all straightforward or modern. Plus there are reports that current error messages in branch for tsb staff are in Spanish...

Systems from the 70s May look clunky but they appear to work over the decades.

I read somwhere this was a cutting edge third party banking platform implemented by Sabadell. They seem to have cloned that for uk use. I take your point though.

I was thinking more along the reliance on platforms built on creaking 70s architecture which they won t want to support forever.

charlieboycat

Frogletina wrote: »

Also from the Cambridge dictionary

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/people-who-live-in-glass-houses-shouldn-t-throw-stones?q=glass+houses

And I raise you the OED as well

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/people_(who_live)_in_glass_houses_shouldn't_throw_stones

frogletina

I wonder why both the Cambridge and Oxford dictionaries choose to use the American "criticize" rather than the British "criticise".

Not that I would wish to be critical.

EachPenny

charlieboycat wrote: »

Well at long last TSB are admitting that there is a payments issue - this wasn't on their service update page yesterday but is now:

"Some customers are experiencing difficulties making faster payments via mobile and internet banking successfully. An error message is shown on screen. Card payments, direct debits and standing orders are all working fine."

But based on what's been reported here and in the press the final sentence is codswallop as far as card payments are concerned.

Bear in mind during the course of a normal day for a bank there will be many people who have declined transactions for all kinds of reasons. We often read about them on this forum and people asking "why me?".

Overlaying that on a bank's IT infrastructure having a meltdown it would be very easy to simply blame every card failure and every missed DD payment as being down to the same cause.

Without wishing to blame any customers (and incur the wrath of anyone) I would speculate that at least the typical number of 'failures' are due to the typical reasons - people having no money in their account, entering their PIN incorrectly, a comms failure, suspicion of fraud etc etc.

It is just that in the middle of a social media frenzy it is easy (and fun) to post "Stupid TSB IT system declined my card" rather than what in normal circumstances would be kept rather quieter "Stupid me went overdrawn again".

charlieboycat

EachPenny wrote: »

I would speculate that at least the typical number of 'failures' are due to the typical reasons - people having no money in their account, entering their PIN incorrectly, a comms failure, suspicion of fraud etc etc.

Good point - I stand corrected.

ValiantSon

mgdavid wrote: »

No, that would be houses made of glass, which is impractical and silly.
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/glasshouse

It dates from the mid seventeenth century and is attributed to George Herbert in Outlandish Proverbs (1640) and Jacula Prudentum (1651) where it is written as, "Whose house is made of glass, must not throw stones at another." A variation was coined by Benjamin Franklin, who wrote, "Don't throw stones at your neighbors, if your windows are glass."

The expression has nothing to do with greenhouses, and so, "glass house" is correct.

EachPenny

ValiantSon wrote: »

The expression has nothing to do with greenhouses, and so, "glass house" is correct.

Perhaps now would be a good point to draw a line under the discussion of who (apart from TSB) has gotten things wrong.

ValiantSon

charlieboycat wrote: »

I wonder why both the Cambridge and Oxford dictionaries choose to use the American "criticize" rather than the British "criticise".

Not that I would wish to be critical.

It isn't exclusively American. Both "criticise" and "criticize" are used in British English, and have been since the seventeenth century. It is a common misconception that it is an American spelling, but this is because the "z" variation fell out of fashion in Britain (although it is making a comeback).

Uxb

bob792 wrote: »

Well, it's good to know the CEO is now in personal charge. Wonder where he was up to now?

Well I imagine he had delegated the work to some of his management teams who assured him it would all be OK.
Its a bit like when your gas heating boiler breaks down
You employ a heating specialist with the right qualifications and he comes and supposedly fixes it.
It then works for 1 day before breaking down again.
....and everyone blames you as being "responsible" for the freezing cold house.

CEO's do not get involved in the day to day running of a business - that is not their job -their job is the overall strategy and future direction of the company.

binaryuniverse

A CEO taking personal charge is not necessarily a good thing. Especially if they don't actually have any expertise in that field.

CEO's being in charge usually means them coming over every 10 minutes wanting to know when it'll be done, then giving a really useful deadline for it to be done by... like that will suddenly make everything magically happen. Everyone gets stressed; more things are rushed in to meet the deadline.

Or, of course, they just open the purse strings (which the team probably weren't given the budget for before) and get more people in. Must be great being in charge. Just shout at people more, to get it done, or throw money at it.

tempus_fugit

charlieboycat wrote: »

I wonder why both the Cambridge and Oxford dictionaries choose to use the American "criticize" rather than the British "criticise".

Not that I would wish to be critical.

Using a 'z' is not American though. It was us that changed it, not them. In fact, using a 'z' was common here until the 19th century. Even last night there was a programme on which showed a letter to a newspaper from the 1800s (in the UK), and the writer used a 'z' in a similar word. Ultimately, in the UK, either form is acceptable usage.

(Edit: Sorry, just seen ValiantSon has already answered in the same vein. )