Wells Fargo Customers Report Missing Paychecks Following Service Outages

Last month, more than 800,000 American workers had to struggle with financial insecurity as a result of an ongoing government shutdown, which left many federal employees without a paycheck. While the shutdown — which lasted 35 days, the longest in American history — was eventually resolved, it seems that the month of February has brought with it a new financial disaster.

As previously reported by USA Today, American financial company Wells Fargo suffered widespread outage on Thursday, February 7. The company was plagued with technical problems, which prevented some of its customers from accessing their bank accounts online, either through the company’s website or via its iOS and Android apps.

While the issue did not affect every single Wells Fargo customer, some users who tried to log in were greeted with an error screen that explained that the online portal was experiencing technical difficulties.

It seems the myriad of technical issues stemmed from one of Wells Fargo’s data centers. As the company explained on Twitter, one of their facilities experienced a power shutdown after smoke was detected following routine building maintenance.

While Wells Fargo seems to have sorted out their technical difficulties, it seems that some customers are experiencing repercussions as a result of yesterday’s temporary outage. As USA Today reports, stories of missing paychecks and direct deposits have been cropping up on social media.

Wells Fargo customers wake up to missing paychecks https://t.co/0u1nDFY8E4

— Tampa Bay Times (@TB_Times) February 8, 2019

Some Wells Fargo customers took to Twitter to vent their frustration, explaining that their paychecks hadn’t been deposited into their account as of Friday morning. The company did eventually respond to the banking discrepancies by replying to customer’s complaints on Twitter.

“We are aware of an issue regarding the processing of direct deposit into Wells Fargo accounts and we’re sorry for the inconvenience,” the company explained, via Twitter. “Some may not yet be able to see payroll deposits in online banking. Customers should operate as they would normally. Thank you for your patience.”

It’s unsure if there is a pattern as to who is being affected — or if it’s simply affecting customers at random — but a report from WPTV indicates that Palm Beach County school employees are currently missing their paychecks. The Palm Beach County School District did confirm that money had been deposited into its employees’ accounts, and that the account balance discrepancies were a result of yesterday’s outage.

At the time of writing, Wells Fargo has not provided a timeframe for when these issues will be solved. Shortly after 12 p.m., the company acknowledged the issues with their own tweet — as opposed to replying to other Twitter users.

“We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience. We know this has created difficulty for our customers, and we are sorry to have let you down. Please reach out if you have concerns or need help today, and ask for your understanding as our phone wait times may be longer than usual,” the tweet read.