Royal Bank of Canada Software Upgrade Goes Awry 602
Reader mks113 writes "Many Canadians living payday to payday have been in for a shock this week. Canada.com along with many other sources is reporting how thousands of customers have been inconvenienced following an unsuccessful software upgrade at the Royal Bank of Canada on Monday. All government employees (including me) in several provinces had their direct deposits delayed by a day or more." RBC has a comment on the mess.
Sticky karma.. (Score:5, Insightful)
My Canadian friends are screaming bloody murder. I don't blame them.
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
Re:Coincidence? (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah, Nostalgia... (Score:5, Insightful)
Geez, I'm showing my age again...
What sytems, what upgrade? (Score:4, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
May be that will teach you (Score:1, Insightful)
Partial Deployment Possible? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Just like the suits (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Just like the suits (Score:4, Insightful)
No, that's just somebody who thinks the world owes them everything taking the opportunity to complain because it might get them something they don't really deserve.
Who Scheduled this upgrade? (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe they thought they would broaden their QA testing base to, say 20,000,000.
The scary thing (Score:1, Insightful)
"The bank says millions of transactions, from direct pay deposits to bill payments, have been affected by an unknown computer error. "
This could be anything from a simple bug to a disgruntled programmer.. industrial espionage.. etc.
Re:Oh no! (Score:2, Insightful)
I know it's a common practice to float a check, you take in to account that the check will take X days via us mail, it will then take x days to post, my paycheck will go in to my account in X - y days so I'll be fine.
Just because it's common practice doesn't make it right. At some point you have to take responsibility, you singed your name to that check and said that at from the date on this check forward I have the funds in my account to cover it.
I'm not trying to be an troll or anything, I just think that you share a part of the blame for your checks bouncing.
Re:Somebody should get fired (Score:5, Insightful)
If bad code makes it into the wild, then somebody signed off on it. Somebody cut corners on testing. Somebody decided deadline is more important than quality. Somebody insisted it had to run the newest Microsoft code.
That somebody is the programmer's boss.
Re:Somebody should get fired (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Somebody should get fired (Score:5, Insightful)
But are the "correct" heads going to roll?
>In cases like this, you should be lucky if you aren't held 100% liable.
If you were suppose to be held liable, do you think anything would change? Were any Professional Engineers held liable for the big blackout last year?
Poor money management (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:May be that will teach you (Score:4, Insightful)
On the bright side... (Score:1, Insightful)
As one who is just making it by I offer this advic (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyway, my tip is, next time you get a bonus, tax returns, some lump sum of money, spend it on next months rent before you can do anything else with it. Trust me on this. If you put it in your savings you can too easily transfer it to checking when you see Wizz-Bang4000 on pricewatch for only $499! I do this every chance I get and it really helps out a lot.
Now if I could only figure out what to do with the SO.
Those poor members of the IT department (Score:5, Insightful)
I know I always sweat when releasing new software, at least I don't have to worry about effecting the bank accounts of millions of people. That would truly be scary!
Re:Ah, Nostalgia... (Score:4, Insightful)
It's called "Risk Management"
Sure, some big company gets burnt trying to cut some corners; I'd be willing to bet that the vast majority of companies out there that demand high availability (also the gov't) still maintain policies and procedures for their upgrades.
The deal is you have companies which now asses the costs of proper testing verses the cost of defending themsevles against their product blowing up and opt for whichever is cheapest.
There are companies which must maintain a higher standard, by law or existing contract. Unfortunately the trend I've been watching over the years is an acceptable level of incompetence or defects. Manufacturers of PC parts, f'rinstance, are fine with a 15% failure rate off the line. I couldn't imagine such being acceptable with pacemakers.
Ironically, most of the PC's in the world run on some version of Windows and even XP still loses its marbles on a regular basis. Thanks to the complexity of some products, some companies simply weigh the rist and make a financial decision and some CYA plan for Image Damage Control -- Gee, sounds just like the war on Iraq, come to think of it, it's a pervasive attitude.
Re:is this not your greatest fear? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Banking Hazards (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I wonder... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Banking Hazards (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:As one who is just making it by I offer this ad (Score:3, Insightful)
Better still, this plan doesn't have us up Shit Creek when a paycheck (or twenty) is missed.
If you have such a serious problem with raiding your savings account direct deposit can be a great tool for you. Have a small chunk of each check sent into this savings account and never touch it. Never ever. Hell, you'd probably be better off if you didn't even open your bank statements for that account but once a year. Whatever you do, living month to month is not the answer.
Peter
Yup (Score:3, Insightful)
It makes me wonder; if you piss off enough of the clueful folks in this industry, would they simply not apply at your organization, insuring that the only people your HR department sees are the dregs of the vocational schools? Since HR people can't tell the difference between good IT people and bad, no one would get wind of the situation until such time as there were a major failure in your systems brought on by your shitty IT department. Makes you stop and think, doesn't it?
Re:May be that will teach you (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't Rely on Computers (Score:1, Insightful)
Fortunately, I've made it a habit to keep cash on myself at all times (hence the withdrawal), so I'll weather this glitch okay.
A lot of Canadians rely completely on electronic cash (debit cards) for all their purchases. I used to be the same way, until I realized that the only ways the debit card had advanced our society was by:
1. Making store checkout lines twice as slow, as every Dick and Harry tries four debit cards and two credit cards looking for an account with money.
2. Making it easy to overspend because you lose track of your account balances.
3. Leaving you cashless and stranded every time there's a network glitch, a power outage, a bank error, or what-have-you. This happens frequently, and never at a good time.
So now, thanks to the remarkable invention of cash (physical money), I am no longer dependant on the workings of computer systems I have no control over!
Re:Instability? (Score:2, Insightful)
I've seen too many IT people focus entirely on security, and forget about having a sound backup strategy. Those IT people need to get fired. Sure, playing with Arcserve or Backup Exec or whatever sux, compared to finding some new hash algorithm to further encrypt your ssh session, and let's face it, we all like learning new things, but IT isn't about that kinda stuff.
I've had yelling matches at my last employer with IT people; they insisted on not having ANY FTP server, were farting around with NDS, yet when we asked them for a restore from tape, every time there was an issue. They had a 100% failure rate on their backup tapes.
There's too many retarded IT people out there. and too many retarded IT managers out there too.
Re:Wait a minute... (Score:2, Insightful)
Really, the only factor is whether the US is at war or not? Really!? Really, really!??
Let's see
Re:May be that will teach you (Score:2, Insightful)
So what do these "experts" recommend you spend during those 3 to 6 months?
Honestly, if everyone had the ability to just save up 6 months worth of funds then no one would be bouncing checks or investing in short term disability insurance. I had bills before I had a job, no one gave me a grace period to get together some emergency savings.
I save a pretty good amount, 20% of each check goes straight to savings, but it'll still take me most of a year to get 3 months of backup funds. Someone living on a more hand-to-mouth salary may never get that much saved.
Why is your girlfriend expensive? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:is this not your greatest fear? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Wait a minute... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's quite sad, really: any disagreement with you automatically means that I don't like Americans and any and all arguments can and will result in violence, in this case coupled with a strange assortment of insults, what I can only guess is a swipe at my sexuality, and a comment that shows your profound misunderstanding of geography. I must, however, point out that your message, such as it is, is getting garbled by your obvious mastery of grammar and spelling.
Re:As one who is just making it by I offer this ad (Score:2, Insightful)
That's a highly desirable breathing space but still leaves you shackled to your paycheck. If you can learn discipline -- where "savings" means "that stack of money that keeps growing and that I will never touch unless my child is dying", you will be FREE.
FREE, to take a six-month leave of absence to do something that's important to you.
FREE, to quit the job that is making you ill with stress, even though you have no prospects at this time.
FREE, where your boss and your company's CFO and any of the financial institutions you keep your money in -- all these have NO SAY in your life, except as far as you wish them to.
You can't protect against everything, but 30K ought to be enough to get ahead. I started out at 15K a year in 1987, and gave some of that away to charities. I know what humble beginnings are like. ESCAPE THEM!
Re:Wait a minute... (Score:5, Insightful)
my take: (Score:3, Insightful)
(/former field-support rep for a vendor, who got *burned* by the incompetence and mendacity of RBC IT personnel who lied to their manager, and my manager, when THEY screwed up their evaluation of our product - AFTER they had dragged the evaluation out past the 12-month mark. . . how the hell do you justify evaluating a product for 12 months?).
Re:is this not your greatest fear? (Score:2, Insightful)
Money is a concept built on mutual trust. I trust that the money you give me will be honored at its face value in another place.
Be it dollars, euros, gold, or matchsticks.
Money, as such, is meaningless without that trust.
People should be angry lest we lose our democracy (Score:1, Insightful)
The USA would be a lot better place if you Democratic nutjobs would just let go
No, it wouldn't.
And I say this as one who did not vote for Gore, and who votes the issues, not the party (which means I vote as often Republican as I do Democratic
Most people did what you advocated, and the results for America have been disasterous. We have overextended our military, spent ourselves into a deficit we may never recover from, lost virtually all of our world prestige, the vast majority of our close allies (alliances that had lasted more than half a century burned up in just four years of GW Bush's rule), and all of our credibility in the rest of the world. The list goes on, but I think you probably get the point.
Indeed, the USA would be a better place if people had taken to the streets or risen up in outright revolt after the Republicans stole the election and discarded the expressed will of the American people, as it was cast at the ballot office (including Florida, which a full statewide recount sponsored by the media demonstrated conclusively that Gore had won. As an aside, it is interesting how the domestic media then unreported and spun their own study to favor Bush, while their overseas collegues reported it more accurately. Go figure.)
Undermining the democratic process, as the Republicans and their supreme court appointees did in 2000, is terribly destructive irrespective of the qualifications of the usurpur who governs thereafter. The damage to our institutions is quite severe and will be quite long lasting, not least of which because the last branch of our government that had, to all appearances, remained somewhat unsullied by politics, namely the Judicial, has shown itself at its highest levels to be more interested in paying back political favors than ruling sensibly on constitutional law. (Yes, I've actually read their decision. Have you? It is the most convulated series of transparent justifications for violating the intent and will of the constitution and the American voters I've ever read
Of course, in this case we've ended up with an incompetent usurpur to boot, who used his artificially inflated legitimacy post 9/11 to prosecute an unrelated war against his family's enemy in Iraq, thereby overextending the US military and quite possibly costing us a victory in the real war we should be fighting, namely the War on Terror (hint: Afghanistan, NOT Iraq, although Bush's activities have certainly made Iraq from an inhospitable secular environment for Al Q'aide into a veritable breeding ground and ideal staging area
- lose the rhetoric and actually address issues people are concerned about. If that had actually happened in 2000 Al Gore would be president right now.
"People" are concerned about the economy and how much gasoline for the SUVs costs. We have very systematically and very effectively dumbed down our population, to the point where an election can be stolen out from under their noses and their main concern will be "but will this preempt my Saturday afternoon sports, Friends, or Everybody Loves Raymond?"
Gore wasn't my choice, and had I been selecting the party nominee Kerry probably wouldn't have been my choice either. Both are vastly more competent than the current usurpur, however, but more importantly than that, we need a return to constitutional law in this country.
That means an end to midnight raids on people's homes, an end to detention without due process, an end to dismissing and violating the Geneva conventions, an end to operating concentration camps of any kind, including Guantanamo, even if it is aimed at scum like
Re:Wait a minute... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Wait a minute... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:As one who is just making it by I offer this ad (Score:2, Insightful)
>means "that stack of money that keeps growing and
>that I will never touch unless my child is dying"
That's a good strategy and everything, but I learned that it would be better to go ahead and let that savings account go to about zero, if I can use it to get completely out of debt.
If I had a "child is dying" incident, I'm sure it will mean going into debt anyway, and it can't hurt to have zero debt in a situation like that.
Re:Big Questions (Score:3, Insightful)
This comes down to poor testing. The manager(s) involved should (and probably will) be fired - they would have had to have signed off on the code change, and odds are that they rushed the programmers/QA people through testing.