Wednesday 16 August 2023 was payday for some Irish people! A temporary bug in Bank of Ireland ATMs reportedly allowed many users to withdraw €1,000, without it actually being withdrawn from their account. Worse still, some Irish people who didn’t have €1,000 in their account could even have withdrawn the money!
Easy money with a simple withdrawal from a Bank of Ireland ATM? This is the situation faced by many Irish people.
The scene took place yesterday, this Wednesday, August 16, 2023. The Irish bank had to deal with an unprecedented computer bug, allowing any of its customers to withdraw up to 1,000 euros, without having this amount in their account.
The opportunity was rather tempting, and the news soon spread. Faced with such a windfall, countless customers began queuing up at Bank of Ireland cash dispensers.
They all had one goal: to get €1,000 for free, by taking advantage of the system failure.
Bank of Ireland had to act urgently, so it called in the Gardai, the Irish police, to disperse queues and neutralize access to ATMs.
In response, the Irish bank was quick to make its customers aware of the risks involved:
We would like to remind our customers that if they transfer or withdraw funds, including over the limits, this money will be debited from their account.
We are aware that customers may not be able to check their account balance, but they must not make any withdrawals/transfers or risk being overdrawn.
The technical bug has now been solved. As far as the bank was concerned, everything was back to normal.
No more free money!
And Bank of Ireland has been very clear: all cash withdrawals made during the bug period will be taken into account and updated today, Wednesday August 16. As these withdrawals are considered to be a genuine act of fraud, they invited each customer to regularize their situation as quickly as possible.
A policy that risks jeopardizing the balance of some of their customers’ accounts, causing them to reach staggering overdrafts!
In the wake of this, the company announced that it would support Irish people in difficulty. To this end, Bank of Ireland invites its customers to contact their services to set up solutions.
However, the opportunism of Irish customers does not absolve Bank of Ireland of its responsibility. For the Irish Central Bank, the incident remains unacceptable, and it has not failed to sanction Bank of Ireland, assigning it a rather hefty fine.
At the same time, the bank was asked to upgrade its aging IT systems, strengthen its security, and ensure that the incident does not occur again in the future…
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