If not, please do so immediately to find out if you are affected by the current “zero balance/negative balance” issue that the said bank is facing.
Angry depositors and clients bombarded the social media feeds and accounts of BPI because their current balance is either zero or a negative number. There were also some who experienced illegal or unauthorized withdrawal from their accounts since yesterday.
Was BPI hacked?
Some depositors are panicking and linking the said incident to HACKERS because there have been recent hacking reports from CyberScoop, that a Vietnam-linked hacker group hacked PH Government computers to acquire confidential diplomatic records and official “secret” government status reports intended only to be seen by the President of the Philippines, President Rodrigo Duterte and a few government officials.
While some are at ease thinking this is just a computer glitch.
Personally, we also think there is just a system error or computer glitch on the part of BPI and they would be able to restore the correct balance soon. This is because there has been no threats or reports stating that a group of hackers has infiltrated one of the largest banks in the Philippines.
If you are a victim of the “zero balance/negative balance” issue, please contact BPI immediate via their customer service hotlines to report and facilitate the correction of the said error.
WHAT’S THE BEST THING TO DO?
1) Take a screenshot of your transaction history to show the irregularities of your bank account.
2) Visit your BPI branch or the BPI branch nearest you and file an official complaint or report.
3) If you can’t go to their branch, make sure you can report it via their customer service hotline. If you cannot connect as of the moment because we assume that there are quite a number of depositors calling them right now, make sure to leave them a PM (private message) on their social media account and not a comment because comments might get ignored.
4) If you have access to an ATM, check if you can print your balance. If you have previous balance receipts with you, keep it for evidence.
As of the moment, it is still unknown whether it was a nationwide system error on BPI’s part or if they were victimized by hackers.
We think that they would be issuing a statement soon to calm their depositors down.
BPI already knows the issue and are responding to their clients. They have now disabled ATM withdrawals for ALL accounts to prevent further withdrawals. We would be updating this blog post as soon as the issue has been corrected and if BPI has already responded to the multitude of comments bombarding them right now.
UPDATE (8:16am)
BPI already issued an official statement, apparently there really was a system issue that affected their depositors’ accounts. Some accounts were debited twice or credited twice for a past transaction. As per BPI, they are currently correcting the mispostings.
With this BPI advisory, for those who are quite busy and can’t go to their branch or nearest BPI branch, it’s best to wait for BPI to fix the issue and to keep checking your bank balances online and timely check their social media accounts for updates. However, if your deposited amount is quite sizable, it’s still best to go to a BPI branch so you’re sure that everything is accounted for. Please also note that there might be really long lines today at customer service so show up early.