It’s been a week and customers are still mad at BB&T

BB&T customers are still complaining of problems with their accounts nearly a week after a massive data center outage denied them access to their money via online banking and other channels.

The Winston-Salem-based bank announced this week that its banking services were restored following the outage that began Thursday and shut off customer access for days. But on Wednesday, customers continued to take to Facebook and Twitter to complain about money missing and other account problems.

“If it’s recovered why are my accounts still messed up?” one person tweeted.

“I still have some duplicate charges.. should I check on it or wait to see if bank resolves accounts.. almost afraid to pay bills,” a customer wrote on Facebook.

Another person wrote on Facebook, “I am most certainly missing money from my account, no idea where it’s going! I called BBT yesterday and chose the option to have them call me back instead of being on hold...NEVER got a call back.”

In a statement to the Observer, BB&T said all of its banking services are available and the company is helping customers through any residual issues. The company also noted that comments on social media have slowed considerably since the outage began, and that call volume has largely stabilized.

The company added that customer refunds will be automatically processed for fees related to overdrafts, overdraft protection, foreign ATM transactions and negative account balances incurred Saturday through Tuesday – whether those fees were related to the outage or not. Many customers have already received refunds for fees incurred Thursday and Friday, the bank said.

Also, if customers incurred any of those fees this past Tuesday, BB&T said it has already provided them temporary credit for those fees as of Wednesday morning. Full refunds will be complete as normal processing takes place Wednesday night, the bank said.

BB&T has faced big backlash over the outage the bank said began late Thursday afternoon because of equipment malfunction at a data center. Many frequently used services became unavailable, including online banking, BB&T’s mobile banking app and its ATMs.

Customers were infuriated as they grappled with a system shutdown that struck in time for payday and brought a range of problems, from uncertainty over whether direct deposits had been made to inability to pay bills through online banking.

On Wednesday, BB&T declined to provide details on what type of equipment malfunctioned or why it took days to get systems fully restored.

But in a video address to customers over the weekend, CEO Kelly King apologized for the outage and said there’s no reason to believe cybersecurity was a factor. The bank also sent apology emails to customers.

Other customers have thanked the bank for helping resolve their issues.

One person on Twitter complained Wednesday morning about still not being credited for a duplicate charge from Friday. Later Wednesday, the person thanked the bank, saying it had been extremely helpful and resolved the problem immediately.

BB&T is the third-largest bank by deposits in the Charlotte region, behind No. 1 Bank of America and No. 2 Wells Fargo.

This story was originally published February 28, 2018 at 12:40 PM with the headline "It’s been a week and customers are still mad at BB&T."