BB&T recovering after 'technical issue' left customers without access to accounts, cash

BB&T Outage Leaves Customers Without Access to Their Accounts, Cash

Millions of BB&T customers were locked out of their accounts Thursday night and Friday morning due to an outage that bank officials said was caused by a "technical issue."

The interruption of services was first reported Thursday night and appeared to last until just before noon Friday.

"At this time, many of our services are unavailable, including digital banking, Phone24, and ATM. Thank you for your patience as we work diligently to restore your services. We will continue to provide updates here and on http://BBT.com," officials with the Winston-Salem-based bank wrote Thursday night on Twitter.

WSOCTV tried Friday morning to access a BB&T ATM in uptown Charlotte, but the message "Sorry, this ATM is temporarily offline," was displayed on the screen.

The company's website said many of its other banking services were down as well, including digital banking and Phone24, meaning customers couldn’t pay bills or check their accounts.

The issue appeared to be resolved before noon Friday.

“As our systems being to recover, our ATMs and automated Phone24 service are now available,” BB&T officials said in a statement around 11 a.m. Friday.

During the outage, bank customers were still able to use debit, credit and prepaid cards at places like the grocery store or gas station.

A bank spokesperson told WSOCTV, "We understand this is causing a major inconvenience for clients and our teams are continuing to work diligently to restore those services. We will work with clients who have incurred fees or experienced other challenges and continue to provide updates through our website and social media. At this time, we have no reason to believe this issue is related to cybersecurity."