This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2012, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
A failed computer system upgrade at Utah's TAB Bank is causing problems for truckers across the country.
Truckers say they are unable to buy fuel, meet their payrolls and keep their rigs on the road because they no longer have access to their accounts at the bank.
And worse yet, they say the Ogden bank isn't taking their phone calls.
The Utah Department of Financial Institutions said it has received more than 50 complaints from truckers in the past week. It has been told by bank officials that the institution is working on the problem.
"Everything seems to be related to their computer system upgrade," said Eva Rees, supervisor of consumer credit and compliance at the state's financial institutions department.
One of the big problems is that when some truckers use their bank cards to buy fuel, their charges are being declined, Rees said.
Trucker Ronald Shellito of South Carolina, who operates as a FedX contractor with 10 drivers, said when he has logged onto the bank's system his corporate account was nowhere to be found. "I couldn't make payroll yesterday," he said. "I transferred money to them but I don't know what happened to it."
TAB Bank's Director of Marketing Eric Myers said the bank had planned the system upgrade for the past 18 months, but that it ran into unforeseen problems.
"Like many complex undertakings, there were unforeseen issues that arose during the final conversion," he said, indicating additional support personnel were called in and that teams are continuing to work around the clock to fix things.
Myers said one big challenge was converting existing user log-in information to the new system. The bank maintains it would have been a security breach for it to have converted its customer-sign-on data to the new system because it would have required it to manipulate that private information.
So bank customers had to reset their online accounts. And that has led to a flood of customer phone calls seeking information about user names, passwords and the resetting of accounts. Those phone calls overwhelmed the bank's telephone system.
"It is like trying to call into a radio station contest and you get an instant busy signal because all the lines are in use," Rees said.
Myers said as of Friday morning the bank's phone system still was overwhelmed and that many of its customers still were having problems resetting their accounts.
The bank is asking customers to contact it by email at tab.info@tabbank.com. "We're making progress getting through those stacks of emails," he said.
The Ogden-based TAB Bank, formerly Transportation Alliance Bank, is a wholly owned subsidiary of FJ Management. Flying J adopted that name after most of its travel centers were sold to Pilot in 2010. TAB was founded in 1998 to provide financial services to the trucking industry.
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