8 Ways To Function Like Normal When Our Bank’s Website Goes Down

I would never think that a big financial institution’s website would go down in this day and age but wellsfargo.com was inaccessible for a couple hours on Friday August 24, 2007. I remember that I wanted to make sure I had enough money in my checking account before I authorize payment on my credit card that day and wasn’t able to do it because I could not get on. This reminds me not to take anything for granted, and to always have a backup plan.

Here are some alternatives to getting what we need when we cannot access our bank online.

To Get Some Cash
1. Go to the grocery store or any other place that offer cash back when we use our debit cards. The rest is simple, buy something and get the cash we need.

2. We can get cash at an ATM machine. This is a no-brainer but even if the bank’s ATM machine is down, other institution’s ATM machines will allow us to withdraw money. Just don’t make this a habit because fees from both the bank that owns the ATM machine and probably our bank apply.

3. Write a check! Even though these pieces of paper are slowly becoming extinct, they allow us to pay for something without access to our cash immediately.

4. Credit cards serve as a convenient way to purchase, and also a way to withdraw cash quickly because of high interest fees. Because of this, credit cards are the last resort to get cash.

To Check Our Account Balances
5. We can check account balances with ATM machines so doing it online is not the only option. Also, programs such as Microsoft Money allow us to keep track of our account balances automatically. Up to the minute information won’t be available because the online account is not accessible, but at least the balance last time you opened the program would be.

6. We can always call the 800 number to get our account balances. At first I thought it would be quite long but on second thought, the account balance would be available using the automated phone service.

To Access Bill Pay
7. Not much we can do here, but what I learned is never to leave everything till the last minute! There is a excellent feature with bill pay called “schedule payment” and even though we are taking care of it early, we do not need to pay for the bill until the day we schedule the payment to be sent.

To Trade (via Our Brokerage Accounts)
8. Work that phone! Those that do will start to understand what it was like to buy and sell stocks/mutual funds in the old days. Remember to refuse extra charges for doing transactions over the phone and explain that there is no other choice because the website is down.

I was really surprised that wellsfargo.com went down because a company like that would have many redundancy built into their servers. However, this incident proves that nothing is guaranteed. Therefore, remember that there are always alternatives. One last tip, we can always go to the branch!

Tagged as: Money Stories

Promote or Save This Article

If you like this article, please consider bookmarking or helping us promote it!

Print Post | Email Post | Del.icio.us | Stumble it! | Reddit |

Related Posts

• Best Money Ning Personal Finance Entries of August 2007
• Easily calculate your stock portfolio real rate of return
• ATM Receipts – Wells Fargo vs Bank of America
• Compare Our 401k Balances With Others In America
• Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley Becoming Bank Holding Companies Ends Era of Investment Banking

Subscribe! (and Get a Mini-Course with Free Registration)

Follow me on twitter! In addition, subscribe to grab free amazing content or take advantage of the newsletter to have content delivered to you. For starters, a 7-part mini course to help you spend less and be happy will be delivered to you when you subscribe!

(Don't worry about spam, because we hate it as much as you do!)