Bank of America Outage Had Customers Seeing Zeros

In this photo illustration, logos of Bank of America are displayed on mobile phone screen and computer screen — (Image credit: Getty Images)

Many Bank of America customers opened their accounts to a surprise: They apparently had no money.

This was, of course, nothing more than a glitch in the system. Bank of America said "some mobile and online banking clients experienced an issue accessing their accounts and balance information" on Wednesday. While the banking giant did not share details of what was behind the problems, the bank did say the issues were being addressed and "have been fully resolved."

Users started reporting outages at Bank of America on the site DownDetector shortly after 12 p.m. ET Wednesday, with reports peaking at about 1:30 p.m. Reports of problems have since dropped off, although there were still a handful of users reporting issues as of Thursday morning.

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The bank serves 69 million U.S. consumer and small business clients, with over 15,000 ATMs in the U.S. Bank of America / Merrill Lynch Wealth Management were voted by our readers in Kiplinger Readers' Choice Awards for wealth managers earlier this year with recognition for trustworthy advisers.

Bank of America customers said on Reddit they weren't able to log into their accounts on the app or online. Some who were able to log in encountered account balances of $0.00.

"My account says ‘some accounts are temporarily unavailable,’ and there are dashes showing for my savings and debit card balances. However, when I click on the account directly, I can see the balance," one person wrote on Reddit.

On top of obvious concerns about where their money went, people were worried about if they'd be able to make payments, like for rent and home renovations, or if they'd be hit with overdrafts. Credit card balances, however, were still appearing, customers noted — not without some snark.

As more of our lives move online, technical glitches like this seem to be becoming more frequent. A massive CrowdStrike tech outage this summer, for instance, led to problems at airports and hospitals and for 911 systems and some TV broadcasters. In that case, though, financial systems were largely unaffected. While we're also becoming used to data breaches in cyberattacks, it's important to note that not all tech outages are caused by nefarious actors. The CrowdStrike outage, for example, was from a tech update gone wrong.

Even so, it's important to stay calm and vigilant in cases like this. Don't do anything you wouldn't do on any other day, like transferring or accepting transfers of money from unknown actors. If you get a call or text from an unfamiliar number saying it's from your bank and asking for identifying information, hang up and call the bank directly.

Some impacted customers took the outage in stride. One reported user wrote on Reddit: "Zero balance for me. Good timing, though. I'm about to go through a divorce. Half of zero is zero!"

Alexandra Svokos is the digital managing editor of Kiplinger. She holds an MBA from NYU Stern in finance and management and a BA in economics and creative writing from Columbia University. Alexandra has over a decade of experience in journalism and previously served as the senior editor of digital for ABC News, where she directed daily news coverage across topics through major events of the early 2020s for the network's website, including stock market trends, the remote and return-to-work revolutions, and the national economy. Before that, she pioneered politics and election coverage for Elite Daily and went on to serve as the senior news editor for that group.

Alexandra was recognized with an "Up & Comer" award at the 2018 Folio: Top Women in Media awards, and she was asked twice by the Nieman Journalism Lab to contribute to their annual journalism predictions feature. She has also been asked to speak on panels and give presentations on the future of media and on business and media, including by the Center for Communication and Twipe.