Computer Glitch Leaves Some Australians Without Cash 195
An anonymous reader writes "National Australia Bank payments to customers were again delayed today after a computer glitch yesterday morning due to a corrupted file in its mainframe computer. Upset consumers are now demanding compensation for any fees for late mortgage and credit card payments, overdrawn accounts or bounced direct debits charged by any institutions as a result of the mess."
Re:Meanwhile, the rest of the world ... (Score:1, Interesting)
Just don't touch the red-back spiders or the brown snakes. First rule you teach your kids.
At least red-backs don't come into the house all that much.... ...but my favourite is the funnel-web spider - for a long time there was no antidote to its venom.....
I remember people people dying from its bite up until the 1970s.
Re:They deserve any late fees they get? (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course you can do so, but it is not advisable, and you bear the risk if you choose to wait to the due date, you are the one taking on the risk, and you get to pay late fees if your bet was wrong about how long the payment would take.
Why, exactly? Banks are perfectly capable of scheduling transfers to happen on a certain date. Banks are perfectly capable of keeping their systems running 24/7. If they didn't the modern banking system would not function. Now I would agree that it's risky to wait until the due date to schedule a transfer; in addition to the reasons you listed you could have some personal emergency disrupt your day... But if I have scheduled a bill to be paid automatically on a certain date, then by god it better happen (and in fact it does, every month, multiple bills, for years and years now). Seriously, in what scenario would it be excusable for a bank to say "whoops, well, we know you scheduled your transfer, but we just didn't do it"? How exactly is that different than saying "whoops, well, we know you had good funds in your account, but we returned your check anyway"?
I don't know what country you're in, but do know what can happen in the U.S. to a bank that fails to process checks for 24 hours? Do you think maybe they know how to keep systems up and running?
Re:Sorry but doing that is gambling more or less (Score:3, Interesting)
If you take everything down to the wire to maximize interest, fine, but you are gambling the gains in interest vs the potential loss in terms of fees.
Please explain exactly how asking a bank to transfer funds on a certain date, and expecting it to happen on the requested date, is a "gamble". Under exactly what circumstances do you expect banks to fail to process scheduled transfers on time?