“It is not related to a security breach or a security issue, it was a technical error, and we take responsibility,” Lewis said.
Other affiliates of Park National Bank include: Fairfield National Bank, Southwest Ohio & Northern Kentucky, Farmers and Savings Bank, United Bank, First-Knox National Bank, Richland Bank, Second National Bank;, Security National Bank, Unity National Bank, Guardian Finance Company, Southeast Property Holdings and Scope Leasing.
Lewis said the bank immediately put special authorization in place so customers could use their accounts while corrections were being made. On Wednesday, Lewis said all accounts were corrected have.
Correcting the problems created additional issues, though. Customers who had too much money withdrawn, then had too much money in their accounts.
“The immediate reversal of double charges, resulted in a temporary surplus while the resolution took place,” Lewis said.
Some customers’ charges involving pre-authorizations, including gas and restaurant purchases, may still need some processing, said Lewis.
A Springfield woman said her account was not fixed Tuesday evening, but on Wednesday it appeared to be corrected.
“It’s causing me great stress, because it’s now the second week my account kept bouncing around,” said J.C. Evans of Springfield, who is a customer of the Security National Bank branch.
Evans said she noticed several transactions including a $1 charge at McDonald’s was taken out of her bank account and put back in several times over the last few days.
“My balance changes every day. I’m afraid to pay anything. I want to know why a mistake concerning thousands of people is taking so long to straighten out,” Evans said.
The glitch and corrections also caused statements and online account info to show several extra lines of transactions, which many customers will find confusing, said Lewis.
“We are being transparent by showing all of the double charges and the steps taken to correct them. This is our mistake and no one will be held accountable for temporary overdraft resulting from this error,” Lewis said.
Customers who are still having issues are encouraged to call their branch immediately to get the problem resolved, said Lewis.
“We are aware of what caused the error and we have taken action to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Now, we are now 100 percent focused on making corrections for customers.” Lewis said.
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