The @#$%bank locked me out **UPDATE AT #7**

[Rusty Hills Farm]

Is it banking financial mess or what?!? I went to log into my bank online account....and I am locked out. Asked me for the security words on the next screen. I give them. It says I've exceeded the number of tries. Except THAT was my only try. My monthly checks should have been deposited last night.

And just how "locked out" am I? Just to view the account online? Or is the whole account locked out and not paying stuff?

As I'm working on this post, I dialed into my account via phone and none of the scheduled payments got sent out last night and there is no sign of my automatic deposits!

Does anyone else have billpay that is handled by Synovus? Are your bills getting paid as scheduled? And what about your pension checks? Are they arriving on time?

This is scary!

Hawke

 

[Reinbeau]

You need to call the bank pronto and check what's goiong on. Sounds as though your account had been compromised. Do it now!

 

[Anny]

Call your bank ASAP! Some one else could have been trying to break into your account.

 

[BuckeyeDave]

HACKED, FAILED, SEIZED........OOOOMMMMMGGGGG.................. or maybe they're having something we in the industry call “computer problems”, it's been known to happen and bound to happen, heck I've been known to cause “computer problems” myself. Don't worry, the money is secure, the pension isn't lost and the bills will get paid, just give them some time to repair.
Peace,
Dave

 

[Judymae]

Our bank is always screwing up....one day I called early in the morning to check our balance to see if our direct deposit had been deposited.....well it said my balance was negative $17, 465!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I almost drove right off the road. I pulled over and called it again and it gave me the right balance. I just died!!! I thought how on earth could I have gotten in the red and by that much!!! I called the bank later and they said I must have typed in the wrong codes....now how can you do that. You have to put in your acct number and then last 4 of your social and then your secret code. How could I have messed that up and gotten into someone elses acct? They were just trying to cover for themselves. But boy did I htink I was gonna have a heart attack!!

 

[pdsavage]

i have done that a few timesat like 2 am checking my account.I jsut call the bank in the morning and they reset it.it doesnt mess with your deposits and such its just to protect your account online incase of a hacker online.

 

[Rusty Hills Farm]

What a morning!

Sometimes it does pay to live in a small town where everyone knows you....and so does the bank manager!

They tell you stuff account managers on the phone will never tell you!

It looks like someone tried to hack my account last night and the bank's security program caught them and locked down the account. My missing funds will be deposited later today and then they will pay my billpay payments that were supposed to go out last night. Thank heavens!

But I thought I should pass along some things the bank manager told me about account ids, passwords, and security questions. She said it was the way I handled these that helped slow down the hacker long enough for the security program to notice someone was trying to get in. No password/id etc is going to keep everyone out. There are programs out there that IF THE HACKER HAS ENOUGH TIME will break any password, etc. The trick is to slow them down by not using obvious passwords and security questions so that they time out or make mistakes. This alerts the security software.

In my bank's case, they use an id, a password, and then ask you to answer 3 questions: your favorite pet, your favorite flower, and the color of your first car. She said most people give simple generic answers to these: dog or cat, rose or pansy, blue, green, or silver. That makes these easy for the hacker to decode. Instead, use the name of your dog, the name of you favorite flower variety (golden showers for instance), and the exact name the manufacturer had assigned to that car color. My friend, the bank manager, said these answers make the hacker make mistakes and that causes the system to lock the account. Otherwise the hacker could have easily used billpay to send my money to someplace out of the country.

So I got lucky. I didn't happen to give generic answers. And now I hope my unpleasant morning can save someone else from having an even worse one.

 

[DrakeMaiden]

I thought you were going to say that your favorite pet was a chicken.

Glad everything worked out!

 

[hinkjc]

Quote:
That would definitely throw a hacker off. Who would think that would be anyone's fav pet. LOL

I'm so glad you got everything figured out and it's ok.

Jody

 

[silkiechicken]

Good! I like to throw things off by putting a caps or a number in the middle of passwords. LOL