Our test server logs show that at 10:03 pm PT/1:03 am ET the chase.com server abruptly closed a connection to our test program and this is presumably when they brought the site back up. It is now 10:30 pm PT/1:30 am ET and the chase.com main page is once again showing the login fields. Ok so they squeaked by with their statement that the service would be back up “this evening”.
That puts this outage at around 28-30 hours long.
Since I don’t personally have a Chase account, I can’t try to log in and check the online banking and credit card services. If you are a Chase customer and have any kind of experience using the website now, please leave word of what you find in the comments.
According to this article in the Wall Street Journal, Chase is just now clarifying the nature of the problem and the time frame for online banking to come back up:
A spokesman for the nation’s second-largest bank by assets said the service went down because of a “technical issue, not hackers or criminals.” Another person familiar with the situation said the disruption was the result of a flaw in a software program tailored for J.P. Morgan.
It took the bank much of Tuesday to discover the flaw and figure out how to fix it across the system, this person said. The bank expected the online service, which affected computer and iPhone users, to be fully restored Tuesday evening, this person added.
It is now almost 11 pm on the east coast, so they are straining the definition of evening, but perhaps they will claim west coast or Hawaii time to justify this statement. We’ll see if it comes back up before Tuesday rolls to Wednesday here on the west coast.
They still have not provided any more detailed information on their website, the most obvious and efficient place to distribute up to date information on this problem.
More comments from Chase’s spokesman, Tom Kelly:
The bank will work with any customers who had online bill payment deadlines they couldn’t meet because of the outage, Kelly said.
We’ve had one customer report in the comments that an incoming ACH transfer was successful, but according to Kelly’s statements, we can assume there are problems with online bill payments. It might be a good idea to contact your payees or make other arrangements (like a good old fashioned check in the mail).
Again in summary from our 1 pm PT/4 pm ET update, branches, ATM’s and telephone banking are operational although telephone banking still has a considerable wait.
In another statement Tom Kelly says:
The cause of the outage isn’t clear, Kelly said. “It’s a technical issue that we’re dealing with.”
So, clearly they won’t be able to give any estimate on when the online banking might be back up.
If anyone is interested, this is the contact information I found for Chase’s spokesman:
Thomas Kelly
Chase Media Contact
(312) 732 – 7007
cell: (312) 848-5265
thomas.a.kelly@chase.com
Piecing together various reports, we are pegging the start of this outage was between 4 and 6 pm PT (7 and 9 pm ET) yesterday. That means the outage is now 19-21 hours old. It is likely that this outage was preceded by periodic problems for as many as 48 hours before the full-scale outage started.
Chase ran “down due to scheduled maintenance” message until 12:30 am PT/3:30 am ET this morning and then changed to a “temporarily unavailable” message which they are still running.
So far we’ve only seen two reports of statements by Chase, one by spokesman Tom Kelly:
The problem began overnight, and the company is working to fix it
bank spokesman Thomas Kelly couldn’t specify the exact time service was disrupted.
This statement appears to be somewhat misleading as many reports put the start of the outage earlier than “overnight.” In another report:
Bank spokesman Thomas Kelly couldn’t specify the exact time service was disrupted.
It seems possible that Chase may not have a good handle on when the problem started.
In another comment CEO Jamie Dimon apologized for the outage. Chase has made no other official statements about the cause or duration of the outage that we have seen.
We’ve seen various reports from people who say they have talked to customer service reps that claimed the site would be back up as soon as 30 minutes (at 10 am PT/1 pm ET) which it obviously hasn’t, to 3 hours (11:30 PT/2:30 ET). I think it is safe to say that Chase may themselves not have a good idea of how long this problem will take to resolve.
Reports seem to indicate that branch operations, ATM’s and telephone banking are all functioning properly, although phone banking has a considerable wait. By some reports branch traffic is light. There have been no reports on whether online transactions such as money transfers or bill payments are functioning.
That is all the information we’ve seen so far.
You would think that a 24 hours outage on the second largest bank in the US would elicit a bit more of a response from the mainstream media. So far, I the only large media company that appears to have any information on the Chase bank online outage is Bloomberg.
Included in the sites I have checked for any trace of information (but found none) are the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, LA Times, Fox Business, San Francisco Chronicle, and USA Today. Checking Google News ought to turn up stories on ANY mainstream media site, but there is nothing.
Update: Now Fox Business is running the story, but it is the same thing Chicago Breaking Business reported hours ago.
Update: Now ABC News is running the story.
Update 1 pm PT/4 pm ET: Ok, now the mainstream media is getting on board. The New York Times, LA Times, and San Francisco Chronicle all are repeating essentially the same story we’ve seen earlier on Chicago Breaking Business and Bloomberg earlier today. So far no one is reporting any more details probably because Chase hasn’t released any.
I Just saw a tweet claiming Chase’s website has been down for three days. While I don’t think it was down for everyone for three days, this might be an indication that they were having sporadic problems days before yesterday’s outage started.
Chase claims, through a spokesman, that their branch and phone banking is operational, although phone banking is experiencing a very long wait. It is unfortunate that they haven’t provided more detailed information on the nature and possible duration of the problems so people can make plans about transactions that might be affected.
Website Chicago Breaking Business reports the following:
The online sites for Chase retail banking and credit card transactions are down due to technical problems, a spokesman for JPMorgan Chase & Co. confirmed this morning. The problem began overnight, and the company is working to fix it, said spokesman Tom Kelly.
The bank urges customers to conduct their transactions at a branch or by phone, at 800-935-9935. A recording at that phone number tells callers to expect a long wait to speak with a banker.
In this little bit Chase has communicated about the outage, they are still not telling the truth. It did not begin overnight. It clearly began sometime yesterday morning or afternoon.
Update: 10:30 am PT: A slightly different story has appeared on ABC News and while the story still claims the site has been down since last night, Chase’s spokesman is now quoted as saying:
The service has been down since Monday night, but bank spokesman Thomas Kelly couldn’t specify the exact time service was disrupted.
Does this mean they don’t know when it went down?
Update 9/15/10: A comment on this story suggests that Chase had a scheduled maintenance window on Sunday.
Actually, they did have maintenance scheduled for Sunday Morning. Sunday afternoon and night site worked and crashed Monday evening before 4 pm or so, also noteworthy is that the site crashed last month as well, but made no news splash as the outage was mostly in the weekend. It did captured by a few websites that collect Chase gripes..
In all fairness to Chase, we have to entertain the possibility perhaps the maintenance message was up because of the close proximity to the maintenance window the day before if in fact there was one (you can’t believe everything you read). Or not. It is disturbing to hear that they might have had an outage last month as well.
I’m seeing more reports that put the outage starting earlier than our first reports.
According to this tweet, Chase was down at 7 am PT/10 am ET yesterday and this one puts it at around 2 pm PT/5pm ET yesterday. Our best guesstimate then is that Chase has been down for up to 24 hours.
Update: 9:15 am PT/12:00 pm ET: Just saw a tweet claiming Chase’s website has been down for three days. While I don’t think it was down for everyone for three days, this might be an indication that they were having sporadic problems days before yesterday’s outage started.
Ineptitude, outages | admin September 14, 2010 | 
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