CHEYENNE — Elaine Williams has three jobs and works paycheck to paycheck. That means she counts on her paydays being on time every time.
Unfortunately, that’s not what happened Friday morning.
Paychecks for Williams and other customers at Blue Federal Credit Union got hung up in what’s being called an ACH transfer glitch. That’s the Automated Clearing House, a network banks use to move money electronically.
But there was confusion with those who didn’t get their expected deposits, some posting about it in the Facebook group Cheyenne Community Connections, who speculated it was because the Federal Reserve had closed Thursday for former President Jimmy Carter’s funeral.
That was fueled by what some folks said they had been told by receptionists for Blue Federal Credit Union, but the glitch was actually related to a recent merger, said Blue Federal Credit Union CFO Neal Weber.
“While the Federal Reserve offices was closed, the transactional processing was actually open yesterday, as were we, so transactional processing shouldn’t have been interrupted yesterday,” he said Friday. “The issue was more related to we had some recent transactional changes related to a merger we recently went through.”
That caused some delays that took some time for the credit union to resolve, Weber said.
“The good news is that we don’t post our debits until our credits are already posted,” he said. “So, for most of our members, there shouldn’t be a negative financial impact. But we are kind of going back through any of the members who were impacted, just to be sure they didn’t receive any sort of fee or anything like that.”
If they did, Weber said the credit union can back those out.
“That research may take a little bit of time, but we are aware of it and we’re working through it,” he said.
That Unfortunate Domino Effect
Unfortunately for Williams, that solution doesn’t quite solve everything.
She’s going through a divorce, so money has been a little bit tighter than usual. She had run out of dog food Thursday night, so she borrowed a little money from her sister to get her through to Friday morning and payday.
“She’s like, ‘Well, will you be able to pay me first thing in the morning?’” Williams said. “And like usually, as soon as I wake up on payday, my paycheck is already there.”
But on this morning that wasn’t the case.
That caused quite a bit of consternation for Williams and her sister, both of whom had automatic withdrawals set to hit their accounts Friday morning.
“I even called, like, my corporate office for work to see if maybe for some reason my check, my payroll, got messed up,” Williams said. “And they’re like, ‘No, everything seems fine.’ So, I got paid on their end.”
Her credit union told her that there was a delay in processing some checks, and suggested it was because of the federal holiday Thursday, which led Williams to post about it online.
That had lots of people groaning about the federal government on the post, which has since been removed — even though that wasn’t actually the cause of the delay.
“It was just a chain of events, I guess,” she said. “But so, my sister was eating overdraft fees that weren’t directly connected to her account. It was just the chain of events.”
Williams’ paycheck came through in time to prevent overdraft fees on the second two of three automatic payments, but there’s still the first one she will ultimately need to cover for her sister.
Some Panicked Moments
John Parsons, meanwhile, said he had some panicked moments over the situation Friday.
“Me and my wife, we both work at the same night job,” he said. “So, we get paid on the same day, and usually it’s pending the night before on Thursday. Well, my check showed up pending, but hers did not.”
At first the couple worried that the bank had thought it was a double deposit, because it would have come from the same person for the same amount.
Like most people these days, the Parsons have car, mortgage and other payments that are withdrawn automatically.
“Fortunately, it was deposited this morning, and we don’t have to count it until Friday,” he said. “So other than stressing me out for 24 hours, it wasn’t a problem.”
The Parsons, too, are working multiple jobs to make ends meet and count on the night job to help them make their car payments.
“I got ahold of Blue this morning through their chat feature,” he said. “And they said that the Federal Reserve was closed yesterday. They did tell us about the merger, too, so we did know they were going through a merger.”
Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.
