back to article Royal Bank of Scotland website goes TITSUP*

Users who bank online with the Royal Bank of Scotland are having a tough time logging in this morning. Over 80 people have reported issues with online banking, payment cards and the website since around 0909 UTC on the site downdetector.com. RBS users last experienced downtime just one month ago. For some of the Twitterati, …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The indisputable twitter shouting useless performance.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Trollface

    This seems to happen so often...

    You should just make a macro for this story...

    Just automatically add in some twitter reactions from RBS and a few angry customers...

    1. colinb

      Re: This seems to happen so often...

      Macro, think Bot is the cool term now.

      It would be fairly trivial to write a sarky one.

      - Whitelist some companies,

      - generate some Puns

      - check Downdetector

      - find a match

      - search twitter for say RBS down

      - some filtering for swearing and sentiment analysis add in some past down events,

      Article done.

      Profit ...or not.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: This seems to happen so often...

        True, but I refer you to an earlier article today suggesting self employed (and by extension bots) are trying to do jobs they are not expert at, and reduce productivity...

        Albeit, even a hardened, veteran, coffee drinking, up-all-nigh pro journo from El-Reg would not have had to work too hard for this story!

      2. macjules

        Re: This seems to happen so often...

        "Macro, think Bot"?

        Pfft

        Augmented Reality, as in: "There is nothing at all wrong with our website. If you were using our App you would see that everything is just fine"

        (User looks at his/her desktop screen via RBS AR app and sees no Error 500 message)

  3. djstardust

    RBS?

    Always thought thought that for Rubbish Bank of Shiters.

    They reduced our local branch to 3 half days a week so we moved our business accounts away from them.

    Maybe an alien thought for those in power but cost cutting does lose clients.

    1. FuzzyWuzzys
      Facepalm

      Re: RBS?

      You see the morons at the top see that "Oh the company is losing money, eh? Better scale back operations. Start making people redundant and offshore all the IT."

      They never make the connection that the company is shite, so people leave, thus taking their business, the bank/company starts losing profit, they scale back to cut costs and the whole cycle begins again....

      1. Anonymous IV
        FAIL

        Re: RBS?

        > You see the morons at the top see that "Oh the company is losing money, eh? Better scale back operations. Start making people redundant and offshore all the IT."

        You are Fred Goodwin and I claim my £5...

        1. Mad Mike

          Re: RBS?

          No, no. Fred Goodwin did it another way. He simply leveraged the bank to a stupid extent and then purchased a load of sub-prime (ABN AMRO). Cue huge losses and writedowns etc.etc. Then, the next lot implemented the cut, lose customers, cut again, loose customers again, cut again cycle.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: RBS?

            You also forgot "sell everything tangible and non-tangible, purchase highly up priced and hyped sub prime EU banks" to make the business look healthier than it was and rally shares just as you leave, with said share guarantee pension... ;)

          2. Velv

            Re: RBS?

            “Fred Goodwin did it another way. He simply leveraged the bank to a stupid extent and then purchased a load of sub-prime (ABN AMRO). ”

            Shows how little you know. RBS was not leveraged, it bought the sub-prime ABN-AMRO with 10Bn cash. The problem was then not having any “savings in the bank” when hard times hit.

            If RBS had not bought ABN AMRO and Barclays had won the deal, when the crash hit Alistair Darling would have been asking Fred Goodwin to bail out Barclays in the same way he asked Lloyds to bail out Halifax Bank of Scotland. There would have been no under the table Qatari rescue of Barclays.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: RBS?

              Talking of banks, anyone notice that the UK national debt increased by just under 150 billion in the last year, and 2/3 of that amount went to the banks ( all of them, not just the broken ones ).

            2. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: RBS?

              No cash in the bank is being leveraged.

  4. Tim99 Silver badge

    "New Technology"

    Because I am old, I remember what banking was like before it was improved. Bankers called it It "The three threes" - Borrow money at 3%, lend it at 3% more, and be on the golf course after 3 o'clock.

    We were told that ATMs would make everything more convenient, faster, more efficient and cheaper; and our charges would come down. They lied.

    We were then told that going on-line would make everything more convenient, faster, more efficient and cheaper; and our charges would come down. They lied.

    Originally banking required lots of staff, paper, ledgers and competence - It worked. Then it required a few less staff, who knew how to use 3270 terminals - It still worked pretty reliably.

    Now that everything is electronic, and IT is the core of the banking business, how come that all of them are unreliable and incompetent? Oh, that's right they are friends of whomsoever is in government, and are "Too big to fail".

    1. wolfetone Silver badge
      Joke

      Re: "New Technology"

      "They lied."

      Bankers? Lying? Never!

      1. Lotaresco

        Re: "New Technology"

        "Bankers? Lying? Never!"

        Old Harry's Games Series 7 Episode 1

        I think.

        The one that featured the appearance of the bankers in Hell.

    2. Muscleguy

      Re: "New Technology"

      It has been proven that the more abstract a transaction is the harder it is for us mere humans to appreciate the value of it. This is why the banks are so hot for phone apps, touch pay, phone pay etc. etc. Handing over physical money and getting change for it in comparison is absent when paying by card etc.

      Banks like this because it results in people going overdrawn, exceeding their credit limits or just maxxing out their cards meaning they get new cards and go again etc. This makes money for the banks. They hate prudent people who keep their accounts in credit, pay off their cards, put off buying things until they have the money etc.

      I refuse to use touch pay primarily because they keep increasing the max amount per transaction and the number of uses before you have to put your pin in. Which means if someone lifts my cards the amount they can get is significant all without knowing the pin. However the first time you use a card for touch pay you have to put your pin in. If I never do it my cards cannot be used without the pin.

      I don't use banking or payment apps on my phone because my phone is not secure as those miscreants getting replacement sims and cloning phones by blagging on the phone without any of the security questions answered makes phones inherently insecure.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Contactless payment

        Unfortunately, you don’t have to enter your PIN the first time you use contactless payment. This took me rather by surprise when I had to pay a small bill and the receptionist had one of those awkward EPOS terminals on their side of the counter which they had to enter the value into. Expecting to have to enter my PIN it was a bit of a shock to discover that they had tapped my card for contactless payment and it worked, without requiring my PIN.

        I think the banks have been somewhat sneaky in that although their wording suggests that you have to authorise the first contactless payment, it seems that just having made a normal Chip and PIN payment previously is enough to have activated contactless payment, even if you don’t want to use it, which is annoying.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Contactless payment

          The banks can supply non-contactless cards on request.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Tata Implements Typical Shit Unmaintainable Platform

    ^ see title.

  6. Timbo

    NatWest banking website down too...

    ...natwest.com is alive and OK,

    but the online banking at: www.nwolb.com is giving this:

    This site can’t be reached

    www.nwolb.com took too long to respond.

    ERR_CONNECTION_TIMED_OUT

  7. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Terrible Information Technology Screwing Unhappy Patrons?

    I thought we'd already done the "TITSUP backronym" article last week.

  8. IanTP
    FAIL

    Lloyds affected?

    Problems using my debit card today, 1st time was declined, 2nd time ok, person behind counter said it had been happening a lot today.

  9. Korev Silver badge
    Facepalm

    In "More from The Register" at the bottom of the story:

    RBS sharpens axe again: 900 IT jobs to go by 2020

    I wonder how cutting back on IT is working well for them...

  10. Alister

    I reckon they've just implemented HSTS.

    It's very secure now - nobody can get in.

    See, it works!

  11. Daggerchild Silver badge

    Throat clearing before a good scream.

    So I take it this is the DDoS merchants displaying their wares and prices before Black Friday's blackouts.

    Mobile phone companies may want to think about private peering with banks, and banks may want to think about processing that traffic separately from the rest of the Internet.

  12. Me19713
    Devil

    New Normal

    Perhaps TITSUP is the new "normal"?

  13. eionmac

    I have No Smartphone. This 'use app' advice is useless.

    This is not a good solution. I use a desktop computer.. I do not need or want a smartphone. It is a nonsense situation where only solution is to buy a smartphone.

  14. Mandoscottie

    at least they have local branches in times of need......

    Just as well they have plenty of local branches to use when this sorta crap happens.....huh.....oh wait.......

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-42192641

    Tossers, only slightly better than our other tosspots, BOS.

    Flipped both the bird couple years back, moved to Nationwide BS....good god what a difference on all levels :)

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