Irate bank customers see their deposit delays continue into Tuesday now

A glitch with a banking processing system that delayed deposits for many U.S. customers on Friday continued throughout the weekend and through Tuesday.

Big banks across the country had alerted customers about the issue associated with the Automated Clearing House (ACH), a national processor of transactions, following an alert from The Federal Reserve. While the problems were being addressed, it remains unclear when they all will be resolved.

Truist and Wells Fargo had told customers about deposits being delayed, that they were working to fix them and giving refunds for any associated fees.

As of Tuesday afternoon, Bank of America’s notice for account holders was removed. When the problems first surfaced, the Charlotte-based bank told customers who logged into their accounts: “Your accounts remain secure, and your balance will be updated as soon as the deposit is received,” the Charlotte-based bank told customers. “You do not need to take any action.”

‘Beyond frustrating.’ Bank of America, Truist, other big banks warn of deposit delays

Still, customers continued to vent this week on social media platforms such as X, formerly known as Twitter, about deposits still being delayed after their money was expected on Friday.

”Yo (Bank of America) are u gonna pay my bills this month since you’re holding my (and millions of other people) paycheck hostage?,” One person wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, “like what’s the plan babe what are we doing.”

“(Bank of America) come on its been three days and still nothing ? I want my money !!! I got bills to pay,” another user on X poster said.

Spokespeople from Bank of America, Truist and Wells Fargo referred comments to The Clearing House, which operates the Electronic Payments Network, a transfer system that processes individual consumer and commercial financial transactions.

“Banks are continuing to resend the payments that were impacted by the error,” The Clearing House spokesman Greg MacSweeney told the Charlotte Observer Tuesday afternoon by email.

CNN reported that Federal Reserve officials urged banks to work with customers by waiving overdraft or late fees.

Tom Kelly, a spokesman for JPMorgan Chase, said the institution is unsure how many customers were affected, like other banks. “We are automatically refunding overdraft fees for a few days for those accounts we could identify,” Kelly told The Charlotte Observer.

Here’s what else we know so far.

What caused the banking deposit problems?

The Clearing House had a corrupted file which impacted less than 1% of U.S. daily filings through the ACH system. A notice about the glitch was still up on the company’s website, as of Tuesday.

MacSweeney said it’s a rare situation for ACH, which processes billions of transactions a day.

It started last Thursday because of a processing error. MacSweeney told The Charlotte Observer in an email statement on Monday that some ACH payment instructions were sent to financial institutions with account numbers and names of customers hidden to protect information. Since this data is needed to process payments and post them to customer accounts, a lot of ACH payments were delayed.

The error impacted many banks and credit unions. “Some had problems receiving payments, and others saw ‘returns’ from payments that they were not able to send,” he said.

Is the deposit problem fixed?

The Clearing House said many of the delayed payments have already been posted. MacSweeney said the company is working with financial institutions with impacted customers and the Federal Reserve to resolve the issue as quickly as possible. An exact time was not provided.

Will customers lose money?

If customers have not already received their deposits, they should receive it soon or contact their financial institution, The Clearing House said. So customers won’t lose any money, despite certain deposits being delayed.

What happens next?

MacSweeney said the error was an unfortunate, isolated issue, and that immediate steps were taken to prevent it from happening again. “The ACH network continues to operate normally, processing tens of millions of electronic payments each day,” he said.