30-Plus Days Later: VyStar Members Still Experiencing Online, Mobile Issues
While improvements have been made, members continue having problems with the new banking platform.
The Jacksonville, Fla.-based VyStar Credit Union reached a milestone, of sorts, on Monday. June 13 marked one month since VyStar switched to a new online and mobile banking platform, which caused its banking system to go down for several days.
The credit union reported that site improvements continue to be rolled out, such as in VyStar’s most recent alert posted on its website stating, “Online statements are now available.”
In a special FAQ page created by VyStar, it claimed online banking has been available since May 23, but many of the 822,000 members of the $12.3 billion credit union are still reporting problems with the new platform and, according to VyStar, its mobile app “remains unavailable.”
Since the outage began on May 13, for what was to be a two-day project to switch VyStar to a new banking platform, the credit union has posted 28 times on its Facebook page to provide updates to its members.
Since that time, more than 28,077 comments have been posted by members mostly expressing their frustrations about the technical problems.
This comment was posted June 12: “One Vystar is definitely not up holding there logo of Do Good Bank Better. Has to be the worst bank of 2022. Banking has been absolutely miserable the past 6 weeks. They must have the slowest IT team. How long is it going to take to fix your F Up and get the mobile banking back. I keep asking but y’all never answer. Not a professional look to keep avoiding the question.”
In some rare cases, comments showed empathy for VyStar. “Thank you VyStar for all the time & hard work everyone has put in to rectify the situation. I think your response to the issue was phenomenal personally! I have had little to no trouble using the services as I use the drive up lane facilities to complete my transactions during the recovery & have zero complaints!”
Within the past week, VyStar began limiting who can comment on many of its Facebook posts.
Initially, VyStar was proactively refunding any fees it charged members as a result of the conversion. According to VyStar’s FAQ page, “Effective Friday, June 10, we are no longer proactively refunding such fees.”
CU Times has repeatedly requested interviews with VyStar’s CEO Brian Wolfburg, Chief Information Officer Lisa Cochran and VyStar board members. No interview requests have been granted. According to local media reports, no VyStar executive has given an interview in more than two weeks.
The Florida Office of Financial Regulation has been collecting complaints submitted by VyStar members. After receiving the initial batch of 13 complaints, CU Times has put in another request for documented complaints filed with the state.
When reached for comment, an NCUA spokesperson said, “We continue to closely monitor the situation.”
While the NCUA has been monitoring VyStar’s technical problems, the Florida Office of Financial Regulation has jurisdiction over the credit union in this instance.