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Royal Bank of Canada Software Upgrade Goes Awry

Posted by michael on from the cosmic-justice-for-SCO-investment dept.

Reader mks113 writes "Many Canadians living payday to payday have been in for a shock this week. Canada.com along with many other sources is reporting how thousands of customers have been inconvenienced following an unsuccessful software upgrade at the Royal Bank of Canada on Monday. All government employees (including me) in several provinces had their direct deposits delayed by a day or more." RBC has a comment on the mess.

65 of 602 comments (clear)

  1. Wait a minute... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    They actually pay Canadians?... With money?

    1. Re:Wait a minute... by AchilleTalon · · Score: 4, Funny
      Of course, but it's in canadian dollars!

      --
      Achille Talon
      Hop!
    2. Re:Wait a minute... by Zcipher · · Score: 4, Funny

      So that'd be a no, then ^_~

    3. Re:Wait a minute... by Phisbut · · 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...

      --
      After 3 days without programming, life becomes meaningless
      - The Tao of Programming
    4. Re:Wait a minute... by MouseR · · 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.

    5. Re:Wait a minute... by GordoTheGeek · · 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.

    6. Re:Wait a minute... by RetroGeek · · Score: 3, Funny

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

      --

      - - - - - - - - - - -
      I am a programmer. I am paid to produce syntax not grammar. Deal with it.
    7. Re:Wait a minute... by pmsr · · 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

    8. Re:Wait a minute... by AviLazar · · 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.

      --

      I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
  2. Sticky karma.. by the_rajah · · 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

    --


    "Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
  3. That's nothing. by Anonymous Coward · · 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.

  4. Affects not just RB customers by forgetmenot · · 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:

    ----
    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.
    ----

    1. Re:Affects not just RB customers by eln · · 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.

  5. Re:Coincidence? by Sique · · Score: 4, Insightful

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

    --
    .sig: Sique *sigh*
  6. They lie.. by hookedup · · 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..

  7. Oh no! by devphaeton · · 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.

    --


    do() || do_not(); // try();
    1. Re:Oh no! by Anonymous Coward · · 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.

    2. Re:Oh no! by Pedersen · · 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?

      --

      GPL made simple: What was my stuff is now our stuff. If you improve our stuff, please keep it our stuff.
    3. Re:Oh no! by gmack · · 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.

  8. Re:Coincidence? by Patrik_AKA_RedX · · Score: 3, Funny
    Paranoia keeps you healthy!
    Until you get aluminium poisoning.
  9. Ah, Nostalgia... by ackthpt · · 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...

    --

    A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
    1. Re:Ah, Nostalgia... by ackthpt · · 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.

      --

      A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
  10. Certainly Explains by SLot · · Score: 4, Funny

    why they wanted their money back from SCO. ;)

    1. Re:Certainly Explains by AlexCV · · 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...

  11. What sytems, what upgrade? by iso · · 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?

    1. Re:What sytems, what upgrade? by khendron · · 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

      --
      Life is like a web application. Sometime you need cookies just to get by.
    2. Re:What sytems, what upgrade? by skateboard · · 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.

  12. Internet on every PC by Anonymous Coward · · 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*

  13. Re:Same as British Air Traffic Control? by MoonBuggy · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

  14. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 5, Funny

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  15. I Need My Pay by Tr0mBoNe- · · 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."

    --
    while(1) { fork(); };
  16. This is why by Prince+Vegeta+SSJ4 · · 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

    1. Re:This is why by MooseByte · · 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.

  17. apt-get install bank-upgrade by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

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

  18. Re:Somebody should get fired by sfjoe · · 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.

    --
    It's simple: I demand prosecution for torture.
  19. Banking Hazards by TaddS · · 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?."
    1. Re:Banking Hazards by Corporate+Gadfly · · 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.
      --
      Corporate Gadfly
      Jonathan Archer: the most beaten up Enterprise captain in Star Trek history
    2. Re:Banking Hazards by CarrionBird · · Score: 3, Insightful

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

      --
      Free Mac Mini Yeah, it's
  20. I can see it now... by j0eshm0e · · Score: 5, Funny

    junioradmin@rbchost:/> rm -rf core *

    waiting

    waiting

    thinking...this is taking longer than it should

    phone rings.

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

  21. Credit damage by elrick_the_brave · · 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.

    --
    (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
    1. Re:Credit damage by GoofyBoy · · 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.
  22. Re:Just like the suits by Dark+Nexus · · 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.

    --
    Dark Nexus
    "Sanity is calming, but madness is more interesting."
  23. 16bit! by dfltr · · 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!

  24. Who Scheduled this upgrade? by eltoyoboyo · · 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.

    --
    Have you Meta Moderated t
  25. wtf are you talking about. by autopr0n · · 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.

    --
    autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
  26. Re:Somebody should get fired by Pxtl · · 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.

  27. Re:Somebody should get fired by GoofyBoy · · 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?

    --
    The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
  28. It must be M$'s fault. by jwsd · · Score: 3, Funny

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

  29. Re:May be that will teach you by Bull999999 · · 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.

    --
    1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
  30. As one who is just making it by I offer this advic by aardwolf204 · · 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.

    --
    Im dreaming ofa big bndwdth, That can resist the /.crowd.May ur days b merry & bright & may al
  31. this just in..... by presmike · · Score: 5, Funny

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

    --
    presmike
  32. What happened to redundancy? by Various+Assortments · · 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!

  33. is this not your greatest fear? by yoha · · Score: 4, Interesting

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

  34. Those poor members of the IT department by pbailey · · 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!

  35. Big Questions by blueZhift · · 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
    1. Re:Big Questions by Anonymous Coward · · 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

    2. Re:Big Questions by Ubergrendle · · 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?"
  36. Darn... by presarioD · · 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
  37. Re:Eh by delcielo · · 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!
  38. Re:I wonder... by tool462 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yeah, it was probably written in the US :)

  39. Expert guesses? by phizman · · 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.

  40. Re:As one who is just making it by I offer this ad by pyro_peter_911 · · 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!
  41. Re:May be that will teach you by clart · · 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.

  42. Credit Union Networks by Fencepost · · 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
  43. Re:Royal Karma by grozzie2 · · 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?