Britain"s Lloyds bank customers hit by ATM card glitch http://s1.reutersmedia.net/resources/r/?m=02&d=20140126&t=2&i=832836311&w=580&fh=&fw=&ll=&pl=&r=CBREA0P1M5900
A man walks past the entrance to the head office of Lloyds Banking Group in the City of London December 11, 2013.
Credit: Reuters/Olivia Harris
(Reuters) – Tens of thousands of customers of banks owned by Britain’s Lloyds Banking Group (LLOY.L) were unable to use their debit and ATM cards for several hours on Sunday as an apparent technical glitch hit its system.
“We apologize that earlier today, between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m., some customers were unable to complete their debit card transactions,” Lloyds said in a statement.
“Although the majority of transactions were unaffected, we are very sorry for the inconvenience that this will have caused.”
Approximately half of the company’s 7,000 ATMs were affected, Lloyds said, adding that the problem was resolved by 7.30 p.m.
A similar problem hit Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS.L) in December, leaving 1 million customers unable to withdraw cash or pay for goods on one of the busiest online shopping days of the year. Its chief executive later said the bank had neglected its technology for years.
The Financial Conduct Authority has been scrutinizing the resilience of all banks’ technology to address concerns that outdated systems and a lack of investment could cause more crashes.
A software upgrade gone wrong in June 2012 cost RBS 175 million pounds ($ 286 million) in compensation for customers and extra payments to staff after the bank opened branches for longer in response.
(Reporting by Aashika Jain in Bangalore; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)
We welcome comments that advance the story through relevant opinion, anecdotes, links and data. If you see a comment that you believe is irrelevant or inappropriate, you can flag it to our editors by using the report abuse links. Views expressed in the comments do not represent those of Reuters. For more information on our comment policy, see http://blogs.reuters.com/fulldisclosure/2010/09/27/toward-a-more-thoughtful-conversation-on-stories/
At Hey WTF? News, the privacy of our visitors is of extreme importance to us (See this article to learn more about Privacy Policies.). This privacy policy document outlines the types of personal information is received and collected by Hey WTF? News and how it is used.
Log Files
Like many other Web sites, Hey WTF? News makes use of log files. The information inside the log files includes internet protocol (IP) addresses, type of browser, Internet Service Provider (ISP), date/time stamp, referring/exit pages, and number of clicks to analyze trends, administer the site, track user"s movement around the site, and gather demographic information. IP addresses, and other such information are not linked to any information that is personally identifiable.
Cookies and Web Beacons
Hey WTF? News does use cookies to store information about visitors preferences, record user-specific information on which pages the user access or visit, customize Web page content based on visitors browser type or other information that the visitor sends via their browser.
DoubleClick DART Cookie
Google, as a third party vendor, uses cookies to serve ads on Hey WTF? News.
Google"s use of the DART cookie enables it to serve ads to users based on their visit to Hey WTF? News and other sites on the Internet.
Users may opt out of the use of the DART cookie by visiting the Google ad and content network privacy policy at the following URL - http://www.google.com/privacy_ads.html.
These third-party ad servers or ad networks use technology to the advertisements and links that appear on Hey WTF? News send directly to your browsers. They automatically receive your IP address when this occurs. Other technologies ( such as cookies, JavaScript, or Web Beacons ) may also be used by the third-party ad networks to measure the effectiveness of their advertisements and / or to personalize the advertising content that you see.
Hey WTF? News has no access to or control over these cookies that are used by third-party advertisers.
You should consult the respective privacy policies of these third-party ad servers for more detailed information on their practices as well as for instructions about how to opt-out of certain practices. Hey WTF? News"s privacy policy does not apply to, and we cannot control the activities of, such other advertisers or web sites.
If you wish to disable cookies, you may do so through your individual browser options. More detailed information about cookie management with specific web browsers can be found at the browser"s respective websites.
At Not Just The News, the privacy of our visitors is of extreme importance to us (See this article to learn more about Privacy Policies.). This privacy policy document outlines the types of personal information is received and collected by Not Just The News and how it is used.
Log Files
Like many other Web sites, Not Just The News makes use of log files. The information inside the log files includes internet protocol (IP) addresses, type of browser, Internet Service Provider (ISP), date/time stamp, referring/exit pages, and number of clicks to analyze trends, administer the site, track user"s movement around the site, and gather demographic information. IP addresses, and other such information are not linked to any information that is personally identifiable.
Cookies and Web Beacons
Not Just The News does use cookies to store information about visitors preferences, record user-specific information on which pages the user access or visit, customize Web page content based on visitors browser type or other information that the visitor sends via their browser.
DoubleClick DART Cookie
Google, as a third party vendor, uses cookies to serve ads on Not Just The News.
Google"s use of the DART cookie enables it to serve ads to users based on their visit to Not Just The News and other sites on the Internet.
Users may opt out of the use of the DART cookie by visiting the Google ad and content network privacy policy at the following URL - http://www.google.com/privacy_ads.html.
These third-party ad servers or ad networks use technology to the advertisements and links that appear on Not Just The News send directly to your browsers. They automatically receive your IP address when this occurs. Other technologies ( such as cookies, JavaScript, or Web Beacons ) may also be used by the third-party ad networks to measure the effectiveness of their advertisements and / or to personalize the advertising content that you see.
Not Just The News has no access to or control over these cookies that are used by third-party advertisers.
You should consult the respective privacy policies of these third-party ad servers for more detailed information on their practices as well as for instructions about how to opt-out of certain practices. Not Just The News"s privacy policy does not apply to, and we cannot control the activities of, such other advertisers or web sites.
If you wish to disable cookies, you may do so through your individual browser options. More detailed information about cookie management with specific web browsers can be found at the browser"s respective websites.
People are really aggravated, children are crying”
End Quote Alena Kontza Passenger
A passenger who said he had been waiting five hours at London’s Gatwick airport said people were “crying, distraught and angry”.
“One passenger has missed their sister’s wedding,” Tom Flatman, from Brighton, told the BBC.
‘Not good enough’
By midday, air traffic controllers had dealt with 2,800 flights rather than the usual 3,500 on a normal Saturday.
Ryanair has 100 flights affected to and from the south of England, with 10 flights cancelled. It called on the Civil Aviation Authority to act.
“While we acknowledge problems can occur, where is the contingency? It’s simply not good enough and the CAA needs to act now,” it said in a statement.
Heathrow had cancelled 60 flights by 09:45 GMT, with these split between arrivals and departures.
Meanwhile:
British Airways said the technical problems had already led to flight cancellations and warned that they “will cause delays to some flights”
EasyJet said although the majority of its morning flights had departed, “severe delays” and possible cancellations could be expected later
Nats said the problem at its Swanwick centre, in Hampshire, arose in the early hours of Saturday morning when the night-time operation failed to properly switch over to the daytime system.
Something as simple as a broken internal telephone system has brought delays and cancellations for thousands of travellers today.
The controllers at the air traffic control centre in Swanwick, Hampshire, use it to swap important data about aircraft, it’s vital to help them perform their job even though many of them are sitting in the same room.
That system failed to work this morning as they tried to switch from the quieter, night time mode, to the busier daytime mode.
It meant they couldn’t open all the work stations needed to cope with a normal Saturday, so they’ve been running a reduced service ever since.
Instead of 3,500 flights, they’ve only be able to process 2,800 or so.
Nats tell me they’ve never had this problem before, and that it’s totally different to a computer glitch that caused some delays last summer.
Even so airline Ryanair isn’t happy at having to cancel and disrupt so many flights. In a statement it acknowledges that problems occur, but asks the question “where is the contingency?”
It’s the airlines that normally pick up the bill for compensation.
“At night we manage quite big sectors of airspace because the traffic demand is low,” Nats operations manager Juliet Kennedy said.
“During the day, as demand increases, we need to split the airspace into smaller sectors – last night we were unable to open new positions.
“It was a problem with the internal telephone system.”
She said she expected it to be fixed between 1800 and 1830 GMT but that how long disruption to flight schedules would continue depended on the individual airlines.
She added that there had been no impact safety.
The BBC’s transport correspondent Richard Westcott said it was a totally different issue to a software problem that hit the control centre in summer.
Ms Kennedy added: “We want to apologise to people. We are very aware of how much inconvenience this has caused people.”
‘Shambolic’
Belfast, Edinburgh, Manchester, Birmingham, Southampton, Luton, London City, Newcastle, Exeter and Bournemouth are among other airports that have reported delays, asking passengers to check with their airlines.
Stansted Airport said flights were subject to delays, while Gatwick said 20% of its departures had been delayed, with passengers being warned they may have to wait for “a couple of hours”.
At Stansted, Alena Kontza was stuck on a Ryanair plane that had been delayed for three hours. She told the BBC passengers had been given “absolutely no information” and “it’s been nothing less than shambolic”.
“People are really aggravated, children are crying, people want to leave, people want to change to different planes, it’s an absolute nightmare,” she said.
And in Norwich, one mother said she was worried she would have to cancel a planned Christmas trip to Lapland tomorrow morning.
“It’s the second time we are trying to do this trip,” Lisa Smith said. “We were grounded by snow two years ago.
“My son will be devastated. How do you tell a child twice they are not going to Lapland?”
National Air Traffic Systems: “We are not able to meet the demands”
Independent aviation analyst Chris Yates said it was going to be a “day of frustrations”.
He said that passengers due to arrive at UK airports from overseas could find themselves diverted elsewhere.
“But it’s going to be a long wait for them. When the system kicks back in and starts working, there will be a backlog of flights.
Have you been affected by the flight delays? Send us your comments using the form below.
Send your pictures and videos to yourpics@bbc.co.uk or text them to 61124 (UK) or +44 7624 800 100 (International). If you have a large file you canupload here.
ABC’s Good Morning America on Wednesday spent over four minutes worrying about “glitch girl,” the woman who was featured on the ObamaCare webpage for weeks during the site’s disastrous rollout. Yet, the same program spent less time on the fact that the website likely will not be fixed by the November 30 deadline. Additionally, Josh Elliott dispatched in six seconds the news that a majority of Americans now find Barack Obama untrustworthy.
Reporter Amy Robach focused on Adrianna (she did not want her last name used), the smiling woman who greeted frustrated Americans on HealthCare.gov. Robach hyperbolically announced, “It’s the face that launched a frenzied hunt.” Continuing the over-the-top language, Robach told the young woman, “You’ve been dubbed glitch girl, the most despised face on the planet.” [See video below. MP3 audio here.] The most despised face on the planet?
Robach also used a favorite word of journalists, describing the page that barely functions as the “glitch-plagued ObamaCare website.” Another GMA segment referred to the “health care software glitches.”
She did explain the interesting detail that Adrianna: “is from Colombia and not a U.S. citizen, though, she is eligible to apply for health care under her permanent residency status.”
The journalist closed her segment by repeating White House talking points: “And when we asked the administration for a response to the website’s new look, they say they always wanted to make changes to the home page, calling it a dynamic website.”
A dynamic website?
A new Quinnipiac poll found a majority of Americans believe Obama is untrustworthy. The survey found the President’s approval rating at an all-time low, 41 percent. This garnered six seconds of coverage in the 8am hour.
Other details got more attention. Co-host George Stephanopoulos opened the show by announcing, “New developments in the ObamaCare debacle. Reports this morning, the website will not be fixed fully by the November deadline.” The host repeated this point at the end of a Jon Karl segment, but didn’t go into great detail.
The Karl story ran one minute and 20 seconds. The reporter noted Bill Clinton calling on Obama to keep his promise regarding people keeping health care they like. But the story didn’t match the time of the gossipy segment on “glitch girl.”
A transcript of the November 13 segment, which aired at 7:06am ET, follows:
Story Continues Below Ad ↓
ROBIN ROBERTS: And now, George, another side of the ObamaCare rollout and the woman who became the face of the website fiasco, plastered on the home page of HealthCare.Gov. The source of anger for so many. And ABC’s Amy Robach spoke to her in an ABC News exclusive. Great to see you, Robin.
AMY ROBACH: Thank you so much. Good morning, Robin. And her picture may be gone now from the website. But the woman who has a name, Adriana, says she’s not completely over the sting of what she calls bullying. It’s the face that launched a frenzied hunt.
JON STEWART: That smiling lady.
CANDY CROWLEY: Have you seen the mystery girl?
ROBACH: As frustrations with the glitch-plagued ObamaCare website mounted, people turned their attention to the mystery woman on the home page. And until now, her identity remained a secret. Why do you want to speak out now?
ADRIANNA: Because I mean, I deserve a chance to tell people who I am and not just let everyone else say whatever they want.
ROBACH: So, who is the woman who was the face of the ObamaCare website?
ADRIANNA: I’m a mother and I’m a wife and I’m not a professional model.
ROBACH: Adrianna, who asked that we not use her last name, is from Colombia and not a U.S. citizen, though, she is eligible to apply for health care under her permanent residency status. And while she says the picture was supposed to be a typical stock photo, she never anticipated it would become a laughing stock.
ADRIANNA: We signed the release that says it was possibly going to be used for material for promoting the health care. We just didn’t know that it was going to have a negative impact.
ROBACH: You’ve been dubbed glitch girl, the most despised face on the planet. Did you ever anticipate this type of publicity? Scrutiny?
ADRIANNA: No.
ROBACH: Adding insult to injury, she wasn’t paid for the photo. Have you ever experienced anything like this before in your life?
ADRIANNA: Well, this is actually a reason I wanted to be here, because as a kid, I never went through that. And now, I am. You know? You know, it’s some sort of bullying.
ROBACH: It is bullying.
ADRIANNA: But at the same time, you know, I thought I have to do this. For my child. I’m here to stand up for myself and defend myself.
ROBACH: Good for her. Her photo was taken down from the website two weeks ago. And Adriana says she is now able to find some humor in the face of all of that negativity. And when we asked the administration for a response to the website’s new look, they say they always wanted to make changes to the home page, calling it a dynamic website. But she certainly took the fall, unfairly so.
Consider the following qualification rules for different Obamacare plans.
If income < 20k then Plan-1
If income >= 20k and < 50k then Plan-2
If income < 30 k and net worth > 150 k and single then Plan-2
But what about this applicant?
Client: unemployed, single, net worth > 150 k and income < 20 k
Since income is < 50 k the client qualifies for Plan-1 or Plan-2. Since income < 20 k client qualifies for Plan-1. Since net worth > 150k and single and unemployed the client qualifies for Plan-2. The computer system will then freeze – probably from stack overflow.
In actuality the qualification rules for various different plans are much more complex than the example above and inconsistency is very hard to track -especially when rules refer to other rules (“as per”, “subject to”, “as qualified by”) as is standard fare for legalese. Moreover, several different programmers will be coding different sections of the rules. And the blame lies then with whom?
Shoppers cleared the shelves at two Louisiana Walmart stores over the weekend when a glitch in the government’s Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) system allowed welfare recipients to use their debit-style food stamps cards to buy unlimited goods without the usual spending cap.
The glitch, which was reportedly caused during a routine maintenance test by EBT card servicer Xerox Corp., made it so cashiers could not view card limits, allowing customers the ability to spend limitlessly.
“We did make the decision to continue to accept EBT cards during the outage so that they could get food for their families,” Walmart representative Kayla Whaling told KSLA. She claimed that Walmart was “fully engaged and monitoring the situation and transactions during the outage.”
The system began working properly around 9 p.m. Saturday, leading people to abandon their overflowing shopping carts in the aisles.
When the system got back online, one woman had just rung up a $ 700 bill at the register and was turned away because she only had a balance of $ 0.49 on her card, Lynd said.
MANSFIELD, LA (KSLA-TV) – Shelves in Walmart stores in Springhill and Mansfield, LA were reportedly cleared Saturday night, when the stores allowed purchases on EBT cards even though they were not showing limits.
Some Walmart stores in Louisiana allowed food stamp recipients to shop despite the fact that the computer system was down and it was impossible to know how much in benefits the shopper could access.
Shelves in Walmart stores in Springhill and Mansfield, LA were reportedly cleared Saturday night, when the stores allowed purchases on EBT cards even though they were not showing limits.
The chaos that followed ultimately required intervention from local police, and left behind numerous carts filled to overflowing, apparently abandoned when the glitch-spurred shopping frenzy ended.
Springhill Police Chief Will Lynd confirms they were called in to help the employees at Walmart because there were so many people clearing off the shelves. He says Walmart was so packed, “It was worse than any black Friday” that he’s ever seen.
Lynd explained the cards weren’t showing limits and they called corporate Walmart, whose spokesman said to let the people use the cards anyway. From 7 to 9 p.m., people were loading up their carts, but when the cards began showing limits again around 9, one woman was detained because she rang up a bill of $ 700.00 and only had .49 on her card. She was held by police until corporate Walmart said they wouldn’t press charges if she left the food.
Lynd says at 9 p.m., when the cards came back online and it was announced over the loud speaker, people just left their carts full of food in the aisles and left.
“Just about everything is gone, I’ve never seen it in that condition,” said Mansfield Walmart customer Anthony Fuller.
Walmart employees could still be seen putting food from the carts away as late as Sunday afternoon. “I was just thinking, I’m so glad my mom doesn’t work here [Walmart] anymore, that’s the only thing I could think about, those employees working, that would have to restock all that stuff,” said O.J Evans who took cell phone video of the overflowing shopping carts at the Mansfield Walmart.
Evans believes it was natural human reaction that led people to fill up their carts during the glitch, but Walmart shoppers Stan and Judy Garcia feel very differently. ”That’s plain theft, that’s stealing that’s all I got to say about it,” said Garcia.
Lynd says contrary to rumors, nobody was unruly or arrested and they were mainly there to help prevent shoplifting and theft.
A dispatcher for Mansfield police also confirms officers were called in for crowd control at the Mansfield Walmart. She said the shelves were cleared out, forcing Walmart to stop selling food at 9 p.m. There were no arrests.
Carts overflowing with food left in the middle of aisles after it was announced that the EBT cards now showed limits.
A “natural human reaction?” Stealing is a conscious choice, hardly natural. Also, how did so many people get word that the store wasn’t checking limits? Some sort of network must have been in use – perhaps social media via phone.
If it turns out that dozens of people went over their limit I wonder if Walmart will look at the thousands of dollars in lost sales and be so magnanimous about not pressing charges.
Hundreds of thousands of children could be left without health insurance due to an oversight in the Affordable Care Act.
Obamacare caps the cost of affordable coverage at no more than 9.5 percent of family income. Individuals with employer-provided coverage and their families cannot get subsidized coverage through state health exchanges, USA Today reports.
But due to an oversight, the section of the healthcare law dealing with employer-mandated coverage only applies to the employee. If a company chooses not to offer family benefits, millions of children and families would be forced into the exchanges but would be ineligible for subsidies.
By one estimate 500,000 children could be affected, USA Today reports.
The alternative, which is to purchase a plan privately, might be a financial impossibility since it costs an average of $ 15,700 per year, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation estimate.
“We saw this 2½ years ago and thought, ‘Has anyone else noticed this?’” Kosali Simon, a professor of public affairs at Indiana University who specializes in health economics, told USA Today. “Everyone said, ‘No, no. You must be wrong.’ But we weren’t, and that’s going to leave a lot of people out.”
“The family glitch is definitely a drafting error that Congress made that needs to be fixed,” Joan Alker, executive director of the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families, told USA Today. “But that seems unlikely.”
Other glitches in the law may hurt families as well.
For example, there are cases where parents may ineligible for government healthcare subsidies, but they may be unaware that their children qualify for programs such as Children’s Health Insurance Program. In other cases, undocumented immigrants may be ineligible for subidized insurance but their children would be.
In another scenario, veterans get individual benefits through the Department of Veterans Affairs, but not family coverage. Their families might be unaware they could get subsidized insurance through the exchange.
Children who live with grandparents receiving Medicare might be eligible.
By Jan. 1, virtually all Americans will be required to carry health insurance — through an employer, a government program, or on their own — or pay a penalty.
Meanwhile, the healthcare law is expected to produce other unintended consequences for families.
For example, employees may be forced to work less and bring in less household income to avoid going over the income level required to qualify for subsidized benefits.
The journalist closed her segment by repeating White House talking points: “And when we asked the administration for a response to the website’s new look, they say they always wanted to make changes to the home page, calling it a dynamic website.”
AMY ROBACH: Thank you so much. Good morning, Robin. And her picture may be gone now from the website. But the woman who has a name, Adriana, says she’s not completely over the sting of what she calls bullying. It’s the face that launched a frenzied hunt.
Have you been affected by the flight delays? Send us your comments using the form below.