NongHyup Customers Got Some Bad News Today

As I rushed to the bank today to transfer some money for an internet purchase I made, I got a surprising notice telling me that there was an error. I Checked my account numbers again and tried a few times. I ran down the street and tried another bank and then another, all with the same error. Suffice to say that I was not a happy camper.

When I got to school I checked the internet and there were a surprising number of posts on Waygook.Org about the problems. The sad part is that I couldn’t find any information from any of the local new sources. According to the reports from Waygook and Twitter, the problem started last night and continues to surprise people as their cards are rejected across the nation. Many people have been put in some problematic situations as they have eaten and tried to pay using NongHyup’s handy “Check Card” only to find it rejected and they can use their ATM card to withdraw money to cover the bill.

According to the rumor mills, NongHyup had some major computer problems (some indicating hacking) but the official report stated that they believe it was either a human error by an employee or a system failure. However, they could not give an exact answer to what cause the failure.

Sadly, this was not set out across all the channels leaving most people questioning why they can’t get money out. The system shut down is affecting ATM’s, internet banking, and check cards. According to their site, teller service should be back up tomorrow, but a tip from a commenter on waygook, recommends that you use you bank book instead of your card. The shut down has not affected NongHyup issued credit cards, just the cards related to local banking, so keep your mastercard handy.

I received a text message this evening stating that the check cards will be running by the 14th. However, reports have been posted on their site giving various dates and times associated with the services coming back online. Poster “maetyu26” on Waygook posted this update this morning:

OK so according to the latest pop-up notification from the NH website, this is what we can expect for now:

Simple transactions (withdrawal/deposit) at the teller window should be restored around 10:45am.

All services at the teller window should be restored around 1pm.

Automated and internet services should be restored around 3-5pm.

Here’s hoping they actually pull it all off as they are saying they will! (Gotta love their strategic use of ‘around’…) Nonghyup fighting!

All that I can say for those who are affected by this shutdown, is to keep cash handy and use your credit cards if need be. Hopefully by tomorrow things should be back to normal. If you need cash, you’ll have to visit the bank itself and I don’t even want to imagine what that will be like tomorrow.

**UPDATE** Here finally is what the Korea Times had to say about the incident.

** 2nd Update ** – Dong-A ilbo reports that customers are planning on legal action against Nonghyup for damages, mostly late fees or lost interest payments that resulted from the bank being inaccessible. No word yet on any English language communities of angry customers who wish to join the lawsuit.  If you lost money during the outage, please email me and we’ll track down how to get your money back.   Also, authorities have nailed down the list of 20 suspects who carried out the “cyber terror” to employees or access-capable visitors.