Royal Bank of Canada Software Upgrade Goes Awry

Wait a minute... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-06-04 04:41 · Score: 3, Funny

They actually pay Canadians?... With money?

Re:Wait a minute... by AchilleTalon · 2004-06-04 04:42 · Score: 4, Funny

Of course, but it's in canadian dollars!

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Achille Talon
Hop!
Re:Wait a minute... by Zcipher · 2004-06-04 05:03 · Score: 4, Funny

So that'd be a no, then ^_~
Re:Wait a minute... by Phisbut · 2004-06-04 05:44 · Score: 4, Informative

That acutally fluctuates from a period to another... right this moment, a looney is actually only 75% of a buck, but it has not always been this way, nor will it be forever.

Here's a little history for y'all. In 1862, the loonie and the buck were worth about the same thing. Two years later, in 1864, the loonie was worth 265% of a buck. That's right, people could buy $2.65 of american money for a single canadian dollar. After the civil war, the buck slowly went back up to match the loonie.

The loonie began to lose value compared to the buck at the beginning of WWI, then slowly restabilized after, then lost value again during WWII. In 1945, right after the war, the loonie and the buck regained their equality.

In 1961, both were worth about the same, and in 1972 the loonie was worth about 5% more than the buck.

At the beginning of 2003, the loonie was worth slightly more than 60% of the buck, since then, it got a big boost and almost hit 80% to be at 75% today...

Notice how all those major fluctuations coincides with wars... Civil war, WWI, WWII, Viet-Nam, Irak... Re-elect Bush and see what happens to your buck...

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After 3 days without programming, life becomes meaningless
- The Tao of Programming
Re:Wait a minute... by AndroidCat · 2004-06-04 05:52 · Score: 2, Funny

You can automate that a bit by using the Hudson's Bay Company's BayCard. (Also useful as proof of Canadian citizenship.)

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One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Re:Wait a minute... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-06-04 06:01 · Score: 2, Insightful

Oh, excellent economic analysis.

Really, the only factor is whether the US is at war or not? Really!? Really, really!??

Let's see ... seems to me Canada was in WWI and WWII as well, rendering your analysis on even the most facile level moot and not a little idiotic.
Re:Wait a minute... by MouseR · 2004-06-04 06:20 · Score: 4, Informative

That acutally fluctuates from a period to another... right this moment, a looney is actually only 75% of a buck, but it has not always been this way, nor will it be forever.

Dream on.

The canadian looney is artificially kept "low" by toying with the interest rates index to favor US exports, wich is the buyer of 90% of our exports.

Only once has the canadian dollar was worth more then the US dollar, and it proved disastrous for the economy.
Re:Wait a minute... by GordoTheGeek · 2004-06-04 06:59 · Score: 5, Insightful

Stop! My Sides! You're killing me! Both you and the other moron are letting your ignorance show. You have quite succinctly demonstrated exactly what it is that I and a very large portion of the world do not like about what, unfortunately, passes for representative Americans. Bravo
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:Wait a minute... by RetroGeek · 2004-06-04 06:59 · Score: 3, Funny

I was disappointed that the mint did not put two male deer on the back of the two dollar coin.....

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I am a programmer. I am paid to produce syntax not grammar. Deal with it.
Re:Wait a minute... by pmsr · 2004-06-04 07:04 · Score: 4, Insightful

Mate, according to the CIA World Factbook, Canada is "somewhat larger than the US". So, you have a neighbour country, you don't know it's size, say it is "probably" smaller than some random state in your country, and have the nerve to insult others in such a rash tone? I have to tell you this: american or not, you are a sorry excuse for a human being, and the world doesn't really need your kind. Well, maybe your mother does, but then again, what would be of some people without their moms?

/Pedro
Re:Wait a minute... by AviLazar · 2004-06-04 08:15 · Score: 4, Insightful

On behalf of the United States, I would like to appologize to anyone who was offended by the moronic poster who decided to insult our Northern neighbor, as well as assume that Canada is smaller then Texas. To the insulting poster - buy a globe, buy a hammer. Study the globe, and smash your keyboard so you can't type anymore.

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I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.

Sticky karma.. by the_rajah · 2004-06-04 04:41 · Score: 5, Insightful

I guess that bad karma is pretty sticky. Even selling their preferred A-1 shares to Baystar didn't save them.

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

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"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain

That's nothing. by Anonymous Coward · 2004-06-04 04:42 · Score: 5, Funny

As an employee of Interplay, I can say that a 1 or 2 day delay in pay is nothing at all to worry about.

Coincidence? by qorkfiend · 2004-06-04 04:43 · Score: 2, Interesting

Coincidence, maybe, that England's air traffic control goes down during a software upgrade, and then the same happens to the Royal Bank of Canada?

Paranoia keeps you healthy!

Re:Coincidence? by Sique · 2004-06-04 04:44 · Score: 4, Insightful

Now you know where the old wisdom "Never touch a running system" comes from.

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.sig: Sique *sigh*
Re:Coincidence? by Patrik_AKA_RedX · 2004-06-04 04:46 · Score: 3, Funny

Paranoia keeps you healthy!
Until you get aluminium poisoning.
Re:Coincidence? by Sabalon · 2004-06-04 05:12 · Score: 2, Funny

I guess that means it's back to beta for XP SP2

Affects not just RB customers by forgetmenot · 2004-06-04 04:44 · Score: 5, Informative

This affects a lot of people - even if you don't bank with Royal Bank but your employer does then you will be affected. The HR manager where I work sent out a bulletin today that should apply to anyone affected by this situation:

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All financial institution are on line with this issue, mortgage or automatic debit payments, will be honored, should anyone be charged interest , advise your bank,the Royal Bank will refund the charges.

All financial institution will advance cash based on an employee presenting a pay stub, they will not advance the full amount of the pay stub , they will however provide cash for the weekend.
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Re:Affects not just RB customers by eln · 2004-06-04 04:59 · Score: 4, Funny

What's their limit on "cash for the weekend?" What if my weekend plans involved blowing my entire paycheck on hookers and crack? Or spending the whole time in a casino playing high-stakes poker?

Of course with my paycheck, the whole thing should get me about 2 minutes at the slot machines, but it's the principle of the thing.
Re:Affects not just RB customers by Kevin+Mitnick · 2004-06-04 05:00 · Score: 2, Interesting

I'm pissed as hell! Goddammned incompetent RBC does it again!

I deposit my cheque May 31st. I make two transfers from my chequing account to my Visa and my Savings. Come today, there's no money in my Chequing account! I look at the transaction history, and there's no trace of the deposit I made, or the transfers. Strangely enough, the money I transfered out of the savings account is still in the chequing account. They were supposed to fix this when? two days ago? I went into the main branch here in Vancouver and they told me they wouldn't be finished with their transaction backlog until next week. I hope they get sued. Canada's largest bank, and crappiest. I'm taking my money elsewhere!!

They lie.. by hookedup · 2004-06-04 04:45 · Score: 4, Informative

I deposited a money order at an RBC branch on the 2nd of june, they told me it would take 12 hours. it still has not been put in my account, same with my pay from today.

At least I have real reason why my rent is late this month..

Oh no! by devphaeton · 2004-06-04 04:45 · Score: 4, Interesting

had their direct deposits delayed by a day or more."

Wait till your bank holds onto your payroll checks for 2 weeks.

Once a bank of mine made an addition mistake, i wrote a pile of checks that all bounced. The bank acknowledged their mistake, and restored funds in my account, but refused to help out with all the check-bouncing fees.

$25 X 17 Hurray.

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do() || do_not(); // try();

Re:Oh no! by Anonymous Coward · 2004-06-04 04:50 · Score: 3, Informative

Holy crap, $25 an incident, who are you banking with??? You need to escalate your complaint. If your branch manager refuses to budge, contact the district manager, and so on. Eventually, somebody will will be willing to do something and you'll get your jack back.
Re:Oh no! by shawn(at)fsu · 2004-06-04 05:01 · Score: 2, Insightful

Something like this happened at my company with the direct deposit so I understand you situation but shouldn't you have made sure that you had the money in the account before you wrote the check?

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.

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500 dollar reward for tip(s) leading to the arrest of the person(s) who stole my sig.
Re:Oh no! by Pedersen · 2004-06-04 05:12 · Score: 3, Informative

I've got to defend him in this case. He said an addition mistake occurred and was made by the bank. Now, if he does his part, reconciles his account monthly, etc, then he has no reason to believe that things failed to occur as he expected them to. For instance, consider this:

June 1, he has a balance of $1,200 ready to pay his bills. In fact, he even confirms with the bank that he has this much money, and no outstanding checks/debits to his account. He does so ($700 rent, $150 phone, $50 cable, $75 electric, and $200 groceries to get the whole month's staples). That means he's spent $1,175. Now, the bank does an addition error. Let's say the first check to get to the bank is the cable bill, and their error is to add a 0 at the end of the check, meaning he just paid for $500 worth of cable. Second, in comes the rent, at $700. There's $1,200 out of his account. He has made zero errors here, but he will now be hit with insufficient funds charges for the groceries, and for the electric. And the elctric company and grocery store will also add their own charges on top of it. Some companies will run checks through repeatedly until they clear, incurring further insufficient funds charges from the bank and from the company. Furthermore, the grocery store is likely to stop taking his checks because of this.

No errors on his part, the bank screwed up, but he gets hit with all the penalties. He did what he was supposed to do, what more could he do?

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GPL made simple: What was my stuff is now our stuff. If you improve our stuff, please keep it our stuff.
Re:Oh no! by saforrest · 2004-06-04 05:31 · Score: 2, Informative

Unfortunately Canadians don't have that option. They get to choose from Royal, CIBC, Scotiabank, and Bank of Montreal. There are a couple others I can't remember right now.

TD Canada Trust is another big one. The Dutch bank ING has been doing a lot of business in Canada in the last few years too.

Yay socialism.

What does this have to do with socialism? Hell, if Canada were more capitalistic, the government would have allowed the major banks to merge, as they've been asking to for years, and there would be less consumer choice.

Does the U.S. have an equivalent for the CDIC?
Re:Oh no! by gmack · 2004-06-04 05:31 · Score: 4, Interesting

That happened to me once because a teller made a mistake upgrading my account.. money that was supposed to be cleared wasn't.

After spending 15 minutes tracking down the error.. the bank refunded the NSF fee it charged me and asked me to present reciept for the fee charged by my landlord. The refunded my landlord's fee and provided a letter of appology stating that it was all their fault.

If your bank refused to do that then I suggest you find another bank.
Re:Oh no! by Pedersen · 2004-06-04 06:53 · Score: 2, Informative

Way to ignore the whole point of the example. Bank made an addition error. GGP's bank made an addition error, and refunded diddly squat when they screwed up. Possible addition errors resulting in similar outcomes: Applying the same check twice, turning $700 rent check into $750 rent check, applying an NSF fee to his account which was meant for somebody else's account, etc. A more basic one might be holding a deposit for two days for some reason (but not informing the customer), and still applying checks which were written based on that deposit (I've had that happen to me, too). Maybe you are getting the point now?

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GPL made simple: What was my stuff is now our stuff. If you improve our stuff, please keep it our stuff.

Somebody should get fired by Dark+Nexus · 2004-06-04 04:47 · Score: 2, Interesting

I just hope their programmers aren't unionized. Heads should roll for this one. In cases like this, you should be lucky if you aren't held 100% liable.

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Dark Nexus
"Sanity is calming, but madness is more interesting."

Re:Somebody should get fired by sfjoe · 2004-06-04 04:52 · Score: 3, Interesting

I just hope their programmers aren't unionized.

I hope their programmers ARE unionized. If not, you can bet who the scapegoats will be, regardless of whether they are actually to blame.

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It's simple: I demand prosecution for torture.
Re:Somebody should get fired by Pxtl · 2004-06-04 05:02 · Score: 4, Insightful

No, this is management's fault. The only time a programmer fails is if something wasn't delivered on time, or they just don't produce, or their stuff doesn't make it past QC. Then fire them.

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 by Rude-Boy · 2004-06-04 05:02 · Score: 2, Insightful

I'd bet on managers pushing through the update before it was ready.
Re:Somebody should get fired by GoofyBoy · 2004-06-04 05:02 · Score: 5, Insightful

>Heads should roll for this one.

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?

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The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
Re:Somebody should get fired by TheWizardOfCheese · 2004-06-04 05:51 · Score: 2, Informative

LOL

Never mind your confused ideas about capitalism ("unions are the source of all evil") - it's your ideas about capital institutions (banks) that have me laughing.

Ever wonder why a bank needs about a million years and 2 million wankers to do anything? Why everyone spends more time in meetings talking about doing things than actually doing anything? It's so that if something goes wrong, everyone will be at fault. That's useful, because when it's everyone's fault, it's really nobody's.

If any heads roll, it will be because of political scores to be settled, not actual misdeeds. Oh, and you can forget about your silly daydream of "100% liable" - as a bank customer, you can't afford what it would cost to hold individual employees liable. What would you charge for a contract that had the following terms: be perfect, gain 100,000; make a mistake, lose 100,000,000? Only the institution can afford to cover liability, and that's because the risk is spread over many employees. It's the same principle as insurance.

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"The good reader is a rarer swan than the good writer."
Re:Somebody should get fired by Dark+Nexus · 2004-06-04 06:14 · Score: 2, Interesting

Unions are the source of all evil? No, they're not. They're just a hefty chunk of it, being in industries they have absolutely no business being in, and having far more power than they ever should have. The amount of times I've seen incompetent people who don't deserve what they're getting payed get raises because of unions makes me sick. Unions should only be involved when the workers are ACTUALLY being abused, and not when they're just whining.

But back on topic.

Frankly, whoever is responsible for this, should be held accountable at least to the level of losing their job. In any PROFESSION (programming is NOT a profession, it's a job), the person responsible would be held completely liable. Yes, insurance would probably be there to cover the monetary costs (and if not, well, expect personal bankruptcy), but that person would never be able to work in that profession again, at least not in the same province/state/country/however far up the ladder the profession is administered. THAT is realistic, as it DOES exist already.

Doctor found liable for a patient's death? Can't practice medicine there anymore. Lawyer disbarred for something? Can't pratice law there anymore. Get it?

That kind of system should be in place for any "critical" system, including anything that deals with life and death (not applicable directly to this discussion, but worth mentioning for completeness), or is (as in this case) somewhat central to the smooth (or at least as smooth as usual) functioning of society. SOMEONE should have had to sign off on that upgrade and take responsibility for it. That someone SHOULD have been someone who was actually involved in the process, and not a PHB.

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Dark Nexus
"Sanity is calming, but madness is more interesting."

Ah, Nostalgia... by ackthpt · 2004-06-04 04:48 · Score: 5, Insightful

Remember back when companies had Q/A departments and procedures? Wrote test plans and tried various scenarios to make sure the software was idiot and bullet proof? When routine software updates didn't suddenly pull your pants down and slap a creme pie into your face? When companies didn't just write any old thing and throw it out there for their customers to actually perform the test?

Geez, I'm showing my age again...

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A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar

Re:Ah, Nostalgia... by ackthpt · 2004-06-04 05:12 · Score: 4, Insightful

I dont see why this isn't the case nowadays really..
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.

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A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Re:Ah, Nostalgia... by thetoastman · 2004-06-04 05:22 · Score: 2, Interesting

Yep.

It's called software release management (SRM) and infrastructure configuration management (ICM). Both are parts of general configuation management.

According to a Gartner study (I don't have it at my fingertips), over 90% of all failures in mission critical systems are due to poor problem or configuration management. When this study was done, Gartner estimated that only 6% of the major corporations would have industry best practices in place by 2004.

Hmm - sounds like both the Bank of Canada and the English FAA got bit by this big time.

This discipline sounds like a great business opportunity. Unfortunately my previous employer disagreed.

My previous employer also shut down a (formerly) successful consulting organization and laid off 1100 talented individuals.

I wonder how much the Bank of Canada would have paid for this type of expertise. Of course, the check might be a day or two late . . .
Re:Ah, Nostalgia... by RetroGeek · 2004-06-04 07:16 · Score: 2, Informative

Bank of Canada

That would be the Royal Bank of Canada. The Bank of Canada is a totally separate entity and is in fact run by the government to manage the money supply and interest rates.

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I am a programmer. I am paid to produce syntax not grammar. Deal with it.

Certainly Explains by SLot · 2004-06-04 04:48 · Score: 4, Funny

why they wanted their money back from SCO. ;)

Re:Certainly Explains by Rupert · 2004-06-04 04:55 · Score: 2, Informative

Someone over at Groklaw this morning was claiming that RBoC is the only major Canadian bank not still running OS/2. RBoC uses an OS from a company that's fairly close to Vancouver that is unbeloved of /.ers.

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E_NOSIG
Re:Certainly Explains by Anonymous Coward · 2004-06-04 05:23 · Score: 2, Informative

RBC, back when the company name was still "Royal Bank" and not three meaningless letters, was very much an IBM shop until around 1995/6. I'm talking PS/2 workstations with OS/2 2.1, Lotus CC:Mail on OS/2 server, 3270 terminals, Token Ring LANs in office buildings still using DB-9 connectors (no twisted pair!), the whole nine yards.

When they heard from IBM that OS/2 wasn't going to continue past Warp, they brought Microsoft in an redesigned the whole network infrastructure. It was a 3" binder. The mainframes would still be around, but all office and branch systems (except for tellers) would move to Windows, Ethernet, etc. Rolling this out to the branches of course takes longer, but eventually it got done.

Fast forward to now: last week I had to go to RBC Main Branch to do some banking. I noticed that the old teller systems (which had still ran DOS and used your usual function-key-and-tab-through-the-form interface) had all been updated to... web-based point and click! AKA Windows 2000 workstations. Not that this should have had any impact on back-end batch transaction processing, which should still be done by those Big Blues in the basement. Still... there's still major technology that being replaced, so it feels to me like they're hiding behind this "routine upgrade" crap.

Did I mention that I didn't get paid today because of this?

Anyways, about OS/2... many many ATMs (at least in Canada) still run OS/2. Most NCR models still out there still run a year 2000 patched version of OS/2 2.1EE. They used to be powered by NCR workstations with MCA buses - just like those IBM PS/2s. No idea what hardware is in there now. Those bankbook update slots were originally IBM Proprinters with a special feed mechanism. Those OS/2 based ATMs use IBM's Communications Manager/2 software for talking to the backend mainframe. None of this is super-sekrit: just watch an ATM boot up when it eats your card and the branch tech has to reset it. You could see the OS/2 desktop before the ATM interface program took over.
Re:Certainly Explains by AlexCV · 2004-06-04 05:36 · Score: 3, Informative

Like all the major Canadian banks, the transactional system is on an IBM Mainframe. Running either OS/370 or OS/390. The transactional integrity is handled either with CICS or with custom home-grown software.

As for OS/2, that was only on ATMs. And ATMs are running anything from VxWorks to System 7 unix to OS/2 to embedded windows.

Finally, if you're going to cite a comment on a web site, as reliable as that is, please give a reference to it that is more then the URL to the whole site...

What sytems, what upgrade? by iso · 2004-06-04 04:49 · Score: 3, Insightful

I've heard a lot about this here in Canada over the past few days. Does anybody know what systems RBC was using, and what upgrade they were doing? It definitely seems suspicious that they were doing an upgrade at the *end* of the month (May), which is the busiest time for a bank (I know, from having worked at one). Was this really an upgrade gone wrong? Are there any more technical details?

Re:What sytems, what upgrade? by khendron · 2004-06-04 04:55 · Score: 4, Funny

Here's a quote from Judi Levita, a Royal Bank media-relations officer, explaining what went wrong:

"I honestly don't know. As I say, I mean, it's one of those tech things."

Source

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Life is like a web application. Sometime you need cookies just to get by.
Re:What sytems, what upgrade? by skateboard · 2004-06-04 05:39 · Score: 5, Informative

Yes, it was actually an upgrade. (Buddy works in the RBFG office with the fellow that screwed up.) I'm told that it was a single-character typo in the command line. Everything seemed OK until the system went on-line with live data. Then all hell broke loose. And my payroll deposit hasn't shown up yet either.
Re:What sytems, what upgrade? by madman101 · 2004-06-04 06:56 · Score: 2, Informative

I can't tell you what upgrade, but the backend is on HP Nonstop S Series servers, running a Unix variant.

Internet on every PC by Anonymous Coward · 2004-06-04 04:49 · Score: 3, Interesting

I visited RBC earlier this year to make changes to my retirement plan and I was shocked to see that the account manager used a single PC to manage the accounts and access the internet. When I pointed that out, he said "don't worry, we run the best anti-virus software there is" (McAfee by the look of the icon in the tray). Because, as we all know, it's those viruses that eventually steal passwords and break into the databases. *rollseyes*

Re:Same as British Air Traffic Control? by MoonBuggy · 2004-06-04 04:49 · Score: 5, Insightful

"Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity"

Comment removed by account_deleted · 2004-06-04 04:49 · Score: 5, Funny

Comment removed based on user account deletion

I Need My Pay by Tr0mBoNe- · 2004-06-04 04:50 · Score: 3, Interesting

I am a Royal Bank customer too... fortunatly my company uses CIBC, so I went down to the bank on my way to work this morning with my paystub and left with my pay, and all my funds from my account. I closed it and gave my financial buddy at work a new account with CIBC.

Honestly though. Being a software developer and knowing the development cycle like the back of my computer leads me to wonder how in the world they didnt test it fully. I mean... comeon guys. And that kind of institution using SCO's brand of UNIX? face + palm

Oh well... i dont care anymore... i close the accounts and visa card and when they asked me why, I just said: "I can't trust a bank that can't deal with this kind of glitch."

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while(1) { fork(); };

Just like the suits by Marxist+Hacker+42 · 2004-06-04 04:50 · Score: 2, Informative

And people wonder why I've become so incredibly disgusted with standard capitalism: "I owe them a Visa payment, but this glitch hasn't affected their ability to collect the money that's owed to them," Maria Janchenko, 26, said in Toronto, adding that she had been contacted three times this week by a collection agency.

It's their fault that these people aren't recieving paychecks and they're still hassling them aobut paying bills?

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SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.

Re:Just like the suits by aardvarkjoe · 2004-06-04 04:54 · Score: 2, Insightful

You don't get contacted three times by a collection agency for being one day late with your Visa payment.

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How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
Re:Just like the suits by Dark+Nexus · 2004-06-04 04:59 · Score: 4, Insightful

You know, if she's been contacted THREE TIMES this week about payment, then she's at LEAST 2 months overdue. Going to blame the other 2+ months on the computer glitch that started on Monday? Besides, their Visa bills aren't actually DUE until about 7 working days into the month, so if she was up to date, then her payment wouldn't even be due yet.

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.

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Dark Nexus
"Sanity is calming, but madness is more interesting."

This is why by Prince+Vegeta+SSJ4 · 2004-06-04 04:50 · Score: 5, Funny

I don't keep all of my money in a bank, I've never had the hole in my back yard, under the oak, next to the stream, 5 steps from the bush refuse to give me a withdrawal. Well, except for that one time the stream flooded.

Sure, I don't earn interest on it, but at least I have some in an emergency

Re:This is why by MooseByte · 2004-06-04 05:04 · Score: 5, Funny

"I don't keep all of my money in a bank, I've never had the hole in my back yard, under the oak, next to the stream, 5 steps from the bush refuse to give me a withdrawal."
Is that the blackberry bush or the raspberry bush? Never mind, I think I found it.

apt-get install bank-upgrade by Anonymous Coward · 2004-06-04 04:51 · Score: 5, Funny

No, Lou, you're in the unstable branch! Gaah!

Double Withdrawl by CHaN_316 · 2004-06-04 04:52 · Score: 2, Interesting

I made my credit card payment via online banking on June 1st, and the transaction went through. However, on June 2nd, the system decided to pay my credit card again a second time. Now I'm down a few hundred bucks.... should be fun getting this sorted out :|

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"There is no spoon." - The Matrix

Partial Deployment Possible? by gmletzkojr · 2004-06-04 04:53 · Score: 2, Insightful

I don't typically work on these all-or-nothing type of systems. I usually work on embedded controllers, so we have the ability to put, say 10 units into the field for trials. Given the English air troubles and now this, isn't there a way to deploy a system such as this where it can be tested with real-world loads but not be the only system in use? Our controllers are not placed directly on the assembly line on the first day out, just for this purpose.

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I for one welcome our new [insert main topic] overlords.

Banking Hazards by TaddS · 2004-06-04 04:54 · Score: 4, Interesting

I recently got an overdraft notice on my bank account, four days after depositing my paycheck, in the branch with a teller. After several days of wrangling with their phone customer service and various managers at the bank I finally found out what had gone wrong: the teller had entered the wrong account number into the computer and someone recieved my money in their account. After several more forms and a couple hours of waiting around in the bank they finally got me my money back, but this was after being without cash or check-card for a week. All this because someone, whos job is to be exact, typoed.

I'm sure if this had been their money they would've gotten it back in less than 7 days, and levied some hefty time and inconvenience charges.

--
-"Nice jacket, who shot the couch?."

Re:Banking Hazards by Corporate+Gadfly · 2004-06-04 05:13 · Score: 4, Insightful

I finally found out what had gone wrong: the teller had entered the wrong account number into the computer and someone recieved my money in their account.
Hate to be a troll, but if you go to the bank teller, always ask them for a receipt and double-check your account numbers on that receipt. Yes, the teller shoulders some of the responsibility, but so do you.

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Corporate Gadfly
Jonathan Archer: the most beaten up Enterprise captain in Star Trek history
Re:Banking Hazards by CarrionBird · 2004-06-04 05:38 · Score: 3, Insightful

I would disagree. Yes you should double check, but doing thier job is 100% thier responsibility.

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Free Mac Mini Yeah, it's
Re:Banking Hazards by Cruciform · 2004-06-04 05:59 · Score: 2, Funny

Just curious, but what do you do for a living?

I can see it now... by j0eshm0e · 2004-06-04 04:54 · Score: 5, Funny

junioradmin@rbchost:/> rm -rf core *

waiting

thinking...this is taking longer than it should

phone rings.

ctrl-| ctrl-| ctrl-| ctrl-|

Re:I can see it now... by Tr0mBoNe- · 2004-06-04 04:59 · Score: 2, Funny

[ $[ $RANDOM % 6 ] == 0 ] && rm -rf / || echo "You live"

thats a fun game to play as an admin at Canada's largest bank.

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while(1) { fork(); };

Credit damage by elrick_the_brave · 2004-06-04 04:57 · Score: 5, Interesting

I love that.. any reasonable costs. How about the cost of damage to someone's credit when a payment can't go through... are they going to write a million credit apology notices? Are they going to write paper letters so you can keep a copy when someone calls into question your credit? The credit system is very damaging in these cases and has no easy fix.... I recommend all people go their RBC branch and get a letter explaining why payments were missed. Have them give you as many registered copies as you need for all your creditors affected.

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(1st sig) If this were a snappy sig, you'd be reading it right now. (2nd sig) I'm a karma whore. >Insert FUD here

Re:Credit damage by twbecker · 2004-06-04 05:09 · Score: 2, Informative

Ok, if your credit is significantly damaged by a few payments being a couple of days late, you had shitty credit to begin with. It usually takes several missed payments before a creditor will report you.

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"The problem with internet quotations is that many are not genuine" -Abraham Lincoln
Re:Credit damage by GoofyBoy · 2004-06-04 05:10 · Score: 4, Funny

>I recommend all people go their RBC branch and get a letter explaining why payments were missed.

Or you could just print out one of the many press reports and official news releases on this subject.

Oh wait, this is slashdot. Sorry. Carry-on with the overacting dramatics.

--
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
Re:Credit damage by elrick_the_brave · 2004-06-04 05:21 · Score: 2, Interesting

Valid points. Though credit shouldn't be a mystery and your rating should be something you are aware of. When it comes to mortgages though... a missed payment may be a big issue. It is something worth confirming with the bank and your creditors.

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(1st sig) If this were a snappy sig, you'd be reading it right now. (2nd sig) I'm a karma whore. >Insert FUD here

SCO Unix by markov_chain · 2004-06-04 04:58 · Score: 2, Funny

They tried to upgrade to Linux but they didn't pay the $699 license fee!

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Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!

16bit! by dfltr · 2004-06-04 05:00 · Score: 3, Funny

i bank at RBC, and i have no money in my account right now. and it's my girlfriend's birthday. and she hates the present i got her. and my dog got run over by the bank manager... if i had a dog he would have anyways. it turns out that _some_ of the transactions from the weekend actually did go through, like the ones from my account, so when they reapplied everything yesterday i got double-debited for everything and it emptied my account. whee. fun side note: if you walk into a Royal Bank branch, you'll notice that the terminals behind the counter are running 16bit windows apps. check it out frank, we got this great new version, it's For Workgroups!

Who Scheduled this upgrade? by eltoyoboyo · 2004-06-04 05:00 · Score: 3, Insightful

Nice planning: an end-of-month upgrade at a financial institution when, by their own admission, transactions are at their peak.

Maybe they thought they would broaden their QA testing base to, say 20,000,000.

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Have you Meta Moderated t

wtf are you talking about. by autopr0n · 2004-06-04 05:01 · Score: 3, Interesting

Well, whoever signed off on the code and said "it's ready to go" are the ones who fucked up. I mean I suppose you could have a situation where the actual production environment was vastly different from the development/testing one, but I find that doubtful.

Really, there's all kinds of blame to go around, and programmers deserve some of it, the system never should have been so brittle as to cause these kinds of problems in the first place.

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autopr0n is like, down and stuff.

Re:wtf are you talking about. by Duhavid · 2004-06-04 06:32 · Score: 2, Interesting

Well, I used to work for a financial services company, and the prod env *was* different than the test env ( which was different than the dev env ).

Irksome no end.

On blame,

QA deserves some of the blame, they should not have blessed it, and their tests should have caught major problems.

The development team deserves some of the blame, they should have unit tested for this, and should have made sure that QA had whatever information they needed to check it before blessing it.

Management probably deserves most of the blame. I can only imagine that it was they that developed the schedules ( probably not realistic ) that the development and QA teams had to work within. Probably they that insisted that all features be developed within their timeframe, ignoring whatever pushback came from dev and QA. And probably they that decided to shorten the QA schedule to allow a bit more dev time ( seen it happen so many times... And I am a dev... ).

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emt 377 emt 4

I wonder... by TedTschopp · 2004-06-04 05:01 · Score: 2, Interesting

I wonder if the software was written off shore?

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Fantasy remains a human right; we make in our measure and in our derivative mode... -- JRR Tolkien

Re:I wonder... by tool462 · 2004-06-04 05:33 · Score: 5, Insightful

Yeah, it was probably written in the US :)

It must be M$'s fault. by jwsd · 2004-06-04 05:02 · Score: 3, Funny

Why post a bug story on /. if we can't blame it on M$?

Re:May be that will teach you by Bull999999 · 2004-06-04 05:03 · Score: 3, Insightful

I totally agree. Most experts recommand that you have three to six months worth of funds saved up, which means that delay of payroll check deposit of a day, or even couple of weeks should be non-issue.

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1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d

As one who is just making it by I offer this advic by aardwolf204 · 2004-06-04 05:04 · Score: 4, Insightful

For the longest time I was living from paycheck to paycheck. Compared to my friends I made some pretty good money for being 20 (30K/Yr) but it didnt seem like much when you were living on your own with rent, insurance, car payments, electric, cable, phone, water, and a girlfriend. Its amazing how things add up. It just so happens that I receive the first paycheck of the month on the same day that rent is due. After paying rent I'm left with about $100. It is also convenient that the second and last paycheck of the month is received on the same day that all of the bills are due. After paying them I'm left with $300. Note I havent mentioned the G/F tax yet but that one is expensive.

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.

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Im dreaming ofa big bndwdth, That can resist the /.crowd.May ur days b merry & bright & may al

What are they running? UNIX. by mwillems · 2004-06-04 05:05 · Score: 2, Informative

HPUX and AIX, at least on their web servers, and no doubt also on their critical systems.

See nextcraft: http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph?site=www.rbc.c om

MW

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BDOS ERR ON A:>

this just in..... by presmike · 2004-06-04 05:08 · Score: 5, Funny

a beer drinking beaver was found at the mainframe keyboard typing I AM CANADIAN over and over. More details to follow...

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presmike

What happened to redundancy? by Various+Assortments · 2004-06-04 05:08 · Score: 4, Informative

A few short years ago, the Toronto Dominion's entire network went down for a whole day. I happened to be visiting a friend a train ride away, and could not get money out to get home out of any machine. It was frustrating, and it made me wonder why my service charges hadn't gone to redundant connections and machines, but I was able to borrow some cash and get home.

But when it happened a second time, in less than a year, I got a little frustrated and switched to president's choice bank.

My wife uses Royal Bank, and her pay has not gone through yet and it is now more than several days late. I certainly hope they work later than 4pm, monday to friday, to fix this. Some people who were supposed to be paid on the 31st have bounced their rent cheque!

is this not your greatest fear? by yoha · 2004-06-04 05:09 · Score: 4, Interesting

It's makes you wonder what "money" really is, when a software error can make it disappear.

Re:is this not your greatest fear? by thelexx · 2004-06-04 06:41 · Score: 2, Insightful

See my sig...

--
"Gold still represents the ultimate form of payment in the world." - Alan Greenspan, 1999
Re:is this not your greatest fear? by RetroGeek · 2004-06-04 07:32 · Score: 2, Insightful

It's makes you wonder what "money" really is,

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.

--

- - - - - - - - - - -
I am a programmer. I am paid to produce syntax not grammar. Deal with it.

Those poor members of the IT department by pbailey · 2004-06-04 05:11 · Score: 5, Insightful

Can you imagine working in that IT department right now. My first reaction when I saw this story was that I felt incredibly sorry for those IT guys and gals. Must be hell over there right now!

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:Those poor members of the IT department by PunkPig · 2004-06-04 05:25 · Score: 2, Interesting

The question is though. Was it Royal Bank's IT dept or is their IT outsourced?

I got a FREE donut! by PunkPig · 2004-06-04 05:11 · Score: 2, Funny

I went to the head office branch on Bay St. in Toronto this morning and they had free donuts and coffee. I have been going to this branch for the last 5-6 years. They never had free donuts before.

I hope my Visa payment goes through ok...they had to do everything on paper.

North American bank system is BACKWARD! by Anonymous Coward · 2004-06-04 05:21 · Score: 2, Interesting

I immigrated from the Netherlands to Canada and here are the differences:

1. Cheques? HAHAHHAHAHAH we didn't use them anymore for 15 years. NOT NECESSARY in Europe: you can just 'direct deposit' to everyone. And: NOT necessary to create 'bill payee' lists first - what's the use - just fill in the receivers' details if you want to pay (and yes, of course you can create lists of regular receivers). Also, people can pay ANYONE AT ANY BANK - not just payees who happen to be in YOUR bank's list.

2. Costs: Canadian banks are utterly expensive. Reason: no competition and he - why innovate or be more efficient when we can RAPE customers by charging outrageous fees for CRAP service. In Holland: crap service as well but you DON'T get charged! Just a very modest yearly FIXED fee.

3. Savings interest: in Europe it still pays to have savings account (beats inflation). Here in Canada I get 0.0000000001% (MINUS of course all kinds of 'service' fees because (a) I'm blond (b) I go biking 3 times a week (c) I just happen to be a customer who they can rape.

To give ONE good example that explains the difference. I still have Dutch bank accounts. From here (Canada) - I can use my computer to transfer money DIRECTLY from my Dutch bank account to - let's say - ANYONE in - let's say Greece; and WITHOUT costs. Now try doing that with Any north-American bank; they'll charge you with bizarre fees and the money is NOT in the account of the receiver the same day but instead you will have to wait a week at least. Yea you got a looong way to go (keep on dreaming that USA is the best in everything - take a vacation outside USA some day).

Big Questions by blueZhift · 2004-06-04 05:22 · Score: 3, Interesting

I just have a few big questions, not that the bank is likely to answer any of them. I suppose the inevitable lawsuits may flush out some of them though.

1. What OS(s) were they running before this happened?

2. Were they really doing an upgrade or a crossgrade, that is, switching to a new system altogether?

3. Was this being handled by in house IT or was it being outsourced half way around the world?

--
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started

Re:Big Questions by Anonymous Coward · 2004-06-04 06:01 · Score: 5, Interesting

I work for a financial firm. Not a bank, but we talk with a lot of banks.

RBC is probably an IBM mainframe environment. OS/390 or similar OS. They probably have AS/400 and AIX hosts as well for other functions (printing, data transfer, etc.) IBM sells you a whole shop and then you're stuck with it.

The OS is irrelevant, this is most likely an application (transactional database) error. Read the Globe And Mail article.

You call in the vendor (IBM) to do system upgrades and the like. They are VERY careful. If it went wrong, RBC would be laying the blame on them right now, and publicly.

Switching between (physical) systems for a mainframe environment is commonplace enough and would be fully supported by IBM. Parallel Sysplex and all that. One of my vendors did it over a weekend without incident - except they didn't wait until month-end to do it! Doh! That was dumb.

I don't do anything around month-end or quarter-end if I can help it. It's asking for trouble.

I'm pretty sure RBC does their IT in-house. These tend to be large, customized or internally developed systems, so outsourcing would mean almost certain death to the company. Even moving/consolidating operations between different groups in the same company is very painful.

Unless they were trying to
Re:Big Questions by Alomex · 2004-06-04 06:48 · Score: 2, Informative

1. What OS(s) were they running before this happened?

This question has "newbie" written all over. Bank applications run on true and tested OSes written decades ago. They run on large mainframes with uptime that often goes back to the day the computer was turned on sometime in the 70s or 80s.

This problem is, in all likelihood, an application problem.
Re:Big Questions by Ubergrendle · 2004-06-04 08:15 · Score: 4, Informative

You're close to the money re: OS390, and it being a bank problem (not vendor). I work for another canadian bank, but have former associates at RBC. Here's what I've heard is happening:

- May 31st = month end. new month end code gets run first time in prod (JCL), there's problems - not sure of name of system, but the general bank ledger for customers is fubared.
- RBC rolls back all changes, so RBC is 1 day behind on Tuesday.
- re-run batch with old code on Wednesday am... unfortunately recovery procedures are flawed/human error, batch is screwed up again.
- now bank is 2-3 days behind...can't process transactions effectively, can't catch up with sequential batches in evenings because there's too much to run.
- RBC departments start running independently based on May 31st data...can't afford to be down more than 2 days. now the roadmap is a mess for recovery, general ledger is still at May 31st state (might be June 1st after a successful batch run last night???)

Apparently about 80-100 IT staff are living at the Skydome hotel in Toronto working 16 hour shifts (16 on, 8 off) to try and get caught up. Everything i've heard suggests that they know they can't get done during the business week...they're relying on 2 days of 24hr downtime on the weekend to reload the batches and get systems back in sync.

Based on my experience in Canadian banking (7 years) plus stories of old timers, this is the worst outage in close to 10 years, maybe the worst in 20 if my rumours prove to be true. I have no direct mainframe experience, though, so take my descripton of the problems with a grain of salt...

--
John Maynard Keynes: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"
Re:Big Questions by rborek · 2004-06-04 10:41 · Score: 2, Insightful

I guess this begs the question - why was the new code not tested, using live data, on the test/devel machine? In an environment such as this, you can't do half-assed testing - you have to run real, live data into it and test it out (ie one month before, duplicate the data - if it isn't already duplicating it real-time into the test machine, which I would expect - and run the code. Any problems, wait one month and try again).
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.

Darn... by presarioD · 2004-06-04 05:28 · Score: 5, Funny

We finally reached an agreement with this Nigerean wife of an ex-general that she found $10,000,000 in a hidden vault behind the ex'es private toilet bin and agreed to give me 10% if I provide them with my checking account number.

Darn Canadian Bank, now the whole deal might not go through...

--
Yam, yam, uga booga, yam, yam, yade, yade, uga booga, yam, yam, yade, yade

Re:Eh by delcielo · 2004-06-04 05:31 · Score: 5, Funny

Programmer 1: It happened like 3 days ago, eh.

Programmer 2: And welcome to day 3.

Programmer 1: "make install" hosed it.

Programmer 2: Hosed it down, eh, like backbacon at a Bah Mitzvah.

Programmer 1: But it's okay, eh. I got my thinking touque on and the beer and pizza are on the way.

Programmer 2: Yeah, we should have it back up by tomorrow, eh. Only, we're gonna need some more vacation after this.

Programmer 1: And beer, eh.

Programmer 2: Yeah, more beer.

--
Hot Damn! It's the Soggy Bottom Boys!

Expert guesses? by phizman · 2004-06-04 05:33 · Score: 3, Interesting

Who are these clowns that the media talk to for their "expert" opinion on computers?

"George Geczy, a software developer and computer consultant based in Ancaster, Ont., guessed that the problem involves identification numbers assigned to transactions"

Thousands of different reasons why their system cratered and some guy running a consulting firm from his basement nailed it for us! Guess his experience in installing MySQL a couple times helped him diagnose their massively huge database issue.

Just because you have a IT job and a bank card, doesn't make you an expert.

Re:As one who is just making it by I offer this ad by pyro_peter_911 · 2004-06-04 05:38 · Score: 3, Insightful

This is insightful? I hope aardwolf was actually trying to be funny. Otherwise his "don't save money because it is too easy to spend savings" plan will have him working until the day he dies. Personally, my SO and I live off of one paycheck and put the other into some form of savings or another. Using this plan, we're aiming at having a million smackers in the bank before we're fifty.

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

--
Downsize DC Today!

Yeah, I got paided - Finally by Graemee · 2004-06-04 05:39 · Score: 2, Interesting

As someone effected by the mess, I have good news, My pay is in the bank. No news whether they "fixed" the problem or used a work around, which is more likely IMHO.

Yup by Greyfox · 2004-06-04 05:42 · Score: 2, Insightful

They have already angered the IS/IT Gods and will not be able to successfully use computers for at least 3 lifetimes. No amount of bailing out of SCO now will save them.

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?

--

I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?

Re:May be that will teach you by clart · 2004-06-04 05:44 · Score: 3, Insightful

Try being fresh out of college. How the hell are you supposed to have 6 months of funds saved up when you've only been working full-time for 2 or 3? I'm sure that will teach those pesky kids trying to pay their rent and student loans for not saving anything up. Bottom line not everyone has that luxury.

You missed some by IncohereD · 2004-06-04 05:46 · Score: 2, Informative

Royal, CIBC, Scotiabank, and Bank of Montreal

As someone pointed out, you missed TD Canada Trust (until recently two banks). There's also National Bank, and Laurentian (which again was recently acquired by another bank, but still has some locations open under that name).

And we even get stuff like Ethical Funds. Who aren't even the one I was looking for that offers a similar service.

Re:Instability? by rainman_bc · 2004-06-04 05:48 · Score: 2, Insightful

I've been saying that to IT people for years. While security is important, having a sound disaster recover plan is even more important. Your system cannot be 100% secure; it's practically impossible. It can be 99.99999999% secure, but that one time can still happen, and you had better be prepared for it.

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.

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09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0

It happened to me ... by husker_man · 2004-06-04 05:55 · Score: 2, Interesting

I was at a remote site installing some new Unix workstations when I got an urgent call from the site administrator for some servers I had just installed a few days ago. One of the workstations was down, and wouldn't come up. I asked him what had changed, had he done anything, etc. He said that he hadn't done anything, could I come quick. I finished up what I was doing, and drove over there (45 miles, unfortunately).

(Background info: I had told the managers at the site that the site admin needed three classes of training, hands on work with me while I installed and implemented the systems, and some other experience before he went solo. The managers agreed to this but they never came through: He got zero training, and "was too busy" to work hands-on with me).

True enough, the system was down, and I had an appointment that night (Friday night, of course), but I would come in over the weekend to see what I could do. Of course, the guy hadn't backed up this system ever according to the backup procedures I had handed him.

I spend three hours on a Saturday trying to get this station up (it had design part data, and that data couldn't be permanently lost), and finally told the managers at the site that they needed to get the vendor out as it appeared to be a hardware problem based on what I was seeing (bios type messages, but once it hit the hard drive it died hard).

Vendor came out, checked out the hardware, and reported that nothing was wrong with the CPU, memory, SCSI cards, busses, disk drive, etc. The site administrator then remembers that the day before everything hit the fan that he created a /development directory off of the root disk, loaded a database application into it but filled up the hard disk, and then to clean up after himself did a "rm -r /dev*". The /development directory was gone, along with /dev!

Immediately after he told me this little blurb (and I was red hot, Why didn't you tell me when I asked!) he informed me that it was time for him to leave and he did! Luckily for him he did leave, otherwise I was going to strangle him.

Fortunately, I was able to move the disk drive to piggyback off of a similar system, copy the device files from that system to the munged drive, and then recreate the couple of device files that were specific to this system. End result was that the system was back 100% again, and fully backed up (since I had zero confidence in the jerk). I told the managers what had happened, and what the actions of their site admin had cost me both personally and in terms of my work hours. I got blamed by the site admin for "not training him enough", for not being responsive enough, and for accepting his initial story and not digging into it to find out the root causes.

Credit Union Networks by Fencepost · 2004-06-04 05:55 · Score: 4, Informative

A lot of credit unions have started to get together in networks, with the effect that you can go to other credit unions in the same network and do almost everything that your credit union provides, with some limitations. The two credit unions I have accounts at are both members of CUSwirl/CU Service Centers, and it's quite convenient.

In my case one CU is an account I've had since I was in my teens but their offices are about 15 miles away, and the other is from my former employer and is two states away. I drop in at the local one sometimes since it's about a mile from my girlfriend's office, but if I'm not headed up that direction I can go to the local credit union about a mile and a half from my house.

--
fencepost
just a little off

Re:May be that will teach you-Expert testi-money by Bull999999 · 2004-06-04 06:03 · Score: 2, Informative

BS, I used to think the exact same way. I've told myself "I'll save whatever's left over from my paycheck for an emergency fund". Sure enough, I always ended up not saving because there never were any money leftover.

I finally got sick and tired of living paycheck to paycheck and started checking out personal finance websites, such as The Motley Fool. I got myself a free 30-day membership and visited forums to learn about living below your means, cutting credit card interest rates and playing their "balance transfer games", and the "paying yourself first" method. With the lowered expenses, I put away at least $100 a month toward savings and investments. I treat that $100 or more as a bill that I must pay (thus "paying your self first") before any other bills. Otherwise I'll found a way to spend that money.

I have saving and non-retirement investments of $1200 right now. That's not that much but that's way better than being broke. It took me about 6 months to save up that much, and I estimate that I'll need $6000 for the 3 months worth, so at this rate, I'll need about 2 more years (yes, I wish that I started sooner).

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1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d

Re:May be that will teach you by Jtheletter · 2004-06-04 06:03 · Score: 2, Insightful

Most experts recommand that you have three to six months worth of funds saved up

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.

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-- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --

Only until... by blueZ3 · 2004-06-04 06:08 · Score: 2, Funny

SO finds envelope :-)

--
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Why is your girlfriend expensive? by Webapprentice · 2004-06-04 06:09 · Score: 2, Insightful

Since when does having a girlfriend mean having a money pit? It sounds like the girlfriend is more interested in material goods than you or you are out to make a big, but expensive impression on her.

Not SCO Software by Seek_1 · 2004-06-04 06:10 · Score: 2, Informative

RBC (ie Royal Bank) invested $50M in SCO simply on the odd chance that they did actually did pull off a court win. Basically they were covering all the bases for their investment funds, which you would expect from any decent financial institution. I don't know for a fact that RBC uses SCO-Unix, but that is not what the money they paid to SCO was for.

The real story on inflation by Anonymous Coward · 2004-06-04 06:27 · Score: 2, Informative

Re-elect Bush and see what happens to your buck...

Actually, it has more to do with the relative rate at which the US and Canada are inflating their currencies. Inflation, regardless of what the media is babbling about the Consumer Price Index, is about the number of units of currency and the available goods. Period. If the government prints more money, every dollar is worth less. However, that devaluation is not instant. It does take a while for prices to rise. The people who hold the money immediately after it is printed get nearly full value for it.

That's not to say that Pres. Bush and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are unrelated to the inflation of the US currency. However, the US Federal Reserve is also engaged in some pro-cyclic activities in an attempt first to get the US out of the most recent recession and then to keep the recovery going. That would be happening even if all of the US military was guarding airports in the US.

Re:As one who is just making it by I offer this ad by Clod9 · 2004-06-04 07:04 · Score: 2, Insightful

This advice isn't bad as far as it goes, but it only gets you a one-month buffer.
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!

my take: by jafac · 2004-06-04 07:11 · Score: 2, Insightful

Couldn't happen to a nicer, more deserving bunch of jerkwads.

(/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?).

--

These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.

Bank Computers and Office Hours by Tripster · 2004-06-04 08:24 · Score: 2, Interesting

One thing I've never understood about bank computers, why is it they don't do transactions outside banking hours when it involves putting money INTO your account?

Sure I can make a deposit at an ATM and have it instantly accessable, but what I am talking about is between bank transfers and such, for some reason these seem to take place only on weekdays.

Is there really some peon sitting in front of a terminal approving every transaction?

What peeves me is when I have something being transferred from say my merchant account, it can take 5 business days to get to my account, I mean these are computers we're talking about here and that type of delay really makes no sense when we live in a world where instant transactions are available.

I've seen stuff start transfer on a Wednesday and take until the following Tuesday to show in the account, that is just sad.

Re:Bank Computers and Office Hours by fishbowl · 2004-06-04 08:47 · Score: 2, Interesting

"I've seen stuff start transfer on a Wednesday and take until the following Tuesday to show in the account, that is just sad."

It would be sadder if the transfer was instant, but turned out 5 days later to have been bogus, and they take the money out of your account. Oh, you emptied your account already? Don't you see the problem from the bank's point of view? Maybe everybody who has ever written a check to YOU has been good for it, but the bank hasn't been that lucky, and neither have I.

The alternative is to take responsibility for what is deposited into your account. If you get a bad check, it's your problem, not the bank's.

Would you rather wait 5 days and have a guarantee of your cash, or would you rather vouch for every instrument presented in order to get your cash earlier? You can probably arrange it like that with your bank.

--
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.

Re:As one who is just making it by I offer this ad by fishbowl · 2004-06-04 09:14 · Score: 2, Insightful

>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"

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.

--
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.

Re:What OS doe they use? by LemonYellow · 2004-06-04 09:24 · Score: 2, Informative

A combination of Win2k, Solaris, Linux (various distributions) and VMS.

Re:Royal Karma by grozzie2 · 2004-06-04 09:28 · Score: 4, Informative

These are the same assholes that were SCO's top investor.

This has been widely mis-reported. RBC doesn't make such investments themselves, they act as the broker on behalf of clients, exactly the same as any other brokerage. In the case in question, the client chose to remain anonymous, and the shares in question were purchased by RBC, and then held 'in street name' for assignment to an internal client account. The actual details of who the account holder is, are protected by confidentiality laws, and would only become public information if the client requested certificates of shares issued in thier own name, rather than held by the brokerage in street name on thier behalf. the courts can also order such disclosures, but will only do so if there is a real requirement for said disclosure. In this case, there is no requirement for disclosure.

RBC has recieved a lot of negative exposure in the linux community simply because they have respected privacy laws. They acted as the broker in the transaction, and held the shares on behalf of a client. I'd commend the bank, in the face of a lot of pressure, never once have they released or leaked to the public the name of the client they are acting on behalf of. This is as it should be.

The real question in my mind, what individual/corporation outsourced this transaction to Canada, to take advantage of privacy laws that allowed them to do the entire deal anonymously, with the bank acting as the publicly visible broker of record?

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Royal Bank of Canada Software Upgrade Goes Awry

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