Several Wells Fargo customers flooded social media with complaints Wednesday after discovering a glitch caused the bank’s online pay center to process multiple payments at one time.
In some instances, customers’ balances dropped to zero — or in arrears — while some customers received email notices warning them that their accounts were zeroed out. Some people who had been on hold with customer service for hours Thursday morning were being told that the situation was being handled.
“We are aware of the online Bill Pay situation which was caused by an internal processing error,” Wells Fargo communications manager Hilary O’Byrne said in a statement late Wednesday. Any fees or charges incurred because of the error will be taken care, he added before apologizing for the mistake.
O’Byrne did not elaborate about how many accounts were affected. Many customers hurried to Twitter to vent and warn others about the glitch, not to mention the several hour-wait to fix the problem.
I HAVE BEEN ON THE PHONE WITH WELLS FARGO FOR OVER AN HOUR?!? WHY DO I HAVE TO WASTE MY TIME BC OF THEIR MISTAKE?!? IM SO MAD
— Donielle (@SleekDonielle) January 17, 2018
Did the guy who pushed the wrong button in Hawaii get a new job @WellsFargo ?? #EpicFail #ByeWellsFargo thanks for the heart attack
— K Wamsley (@wam_fam_kel) January 18, 2018
Wednesday’s error was not the first time Wells Fargo has been criticized for problems related to it’s payment method.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau fined the bank $185 million in 2016 for issuing hundreds of thousands of credit cards to customers without their knowledge and opening more than a million bank accounts without their consent. The CFPB slapped the bank with the fine — the largest it has ever levied — after finding these practices were rampant throughout Wells Fargo since 2011.
Wells Fargo employees issued 565,000 lines of credit and opened 1.5 million bank accounts for customers without their consent, and sometimes created false email addresses to sign them up for banking services in order to pad their numbers. Some 14,000 of those credit accounts accrued over $400,000 in fees, reports CNN Money, and the bank has promised to pay more than $2 million back in fees to customers who were fraudulently charged.
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