JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A week after a planned outage to its online and mobile banking platforms, VyStar told First Coast News on Friday problems are persisting in getting its website and app back up and running and there is no timeframe on when connection issues will be fixed.
Joel Swanson, VyStar's chief member experience officer, reassured customers no personal information has been compromised. Swanson also ruled out a cyberattack or ransomware.
"This is definitely not a cyberattack or ransomware. We have an internal information department that was able to confirm that and we brought in third party leading experts during this time just to provide additional resource and can confirm there is no cyberattack or hacking going on."
Swanson says 'unexpected issues' were discovered Sunday night. "The system was inconsistently unavailable and had a lot of wait times and wasn't letting people log-in consistently," he explained.
The company's Contact Center will be open from 7 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. through Sunday, according to Swanson. Members can call (904) 777-6000 or (800) 445-6289 for account information.
Customers who live outside VyStar's coverage area, and don't have access to a branch, can access their account details through the Contact Center or through the company's automated phone system known as Magic Touch.
Swanson says direct deposits have not been affected and should be posted to customer's accounts on time. Earlier this week, he says some customers experienced delays with certain account transfers, but tells First Coast News those issues have been resolved.
VyStar is waiving and refunding fees during this outage, including for Non-Sufficient Funds (NSF), Overdraft and Courtesy Pay, Consumer and Commercial Loans, according to Swanson.
Swanson says direct deposits have not been impacted and any delays in transfers earlier this week should be resolved.
We asked Swanson about the possibility of rolling back its website and app to an older, previous version. Swanson says it was an option, but, "the timeframe for that and the timeframe for other solutions had to be compared against each other, and we are continuing to evaluate that option, but it is not an easy or quick solution as it may seem."
Swanson told First Coast News its CEO, Brian Wolfburg, was on a pre-planned family trip before the issues began and is now on his way back to Jacksonville.
“As soon as these issues occurred, he began engaging immediately and has been fully engaged throughout this entire process.”
VyStar says customers will be sent updates via email and they will posted to its Facebook and Twitter pages.