Editor's Note: Portions of this story have been updated since the initial report.
JACKSONVILLE, Fla.–A potential class action lawsuit has been filed against VyStar Credit Union over the ongoing failure of its online and mobile banking solutions. Both channels went down on May 14 when the $12.3-billion credit union went through a planned conversion to new platforms from Nymbus, although VyStar has gradually been addition functionality and access via a browser.
The online banking channel, the CU stated, began working again on May 23. The mobile app is still down.
Hortensia Salcedo has filed the suit on behalf of herself “and others similarly situated” in Duval County Circuit Court in Florida.
“Plaintiff and others have not been able to used (sic) defendant’s online mobile banking platform for three weeks,” reads a summary of the lawsuit as reported by Courhousenews.com. “As a result, plaintiff was unable to transfer money to her children while out of the country, unable to pay her bills and caused (sic) plaintiff ‘significant public embarrassment’ after plaintiff’s card was declined.”
Salcedo is being represented by Normand PLLC.
"The ongoing and unprecedented outage violates 'VyStar's 'Online and Mobile Banking Service Terms and Conditions'," the lawsuit reads. "...And largely prevents consumers from monitoring, accessing or utilizing their funds at VyStar."
The suit further alleges the ongoing outage "...has harmed Ms. Salcedo and thousands of of others (sic) Florida citizens. Unless enjoined, VyStar will continue to cause substantial injury to Florida citizens."
One attorney not involved in the case had predicted during a news interview several weeks earlier that litigation was a possibility the longer the outage continued. In an interview with FirstCoastNews.com two weeks after the solutions went down, Attorney Austin Griffin, a partner in StoryGriffin PA, a consumer justice law firm in Jacksonville Beach. Fla., told FirstCoastNews VyStar members could go after the credit union with three possible claims: negligence, breach of contract and fiduciary duty.
Griffin told the publication that since VyStar is a credit union and not a bank, there is “an expected higher standard of care.”
"If they are not doing that, and again you are hurt with a missed bill or something, that is what they breached. That's the promise they broke," Griffin told FirstCoastNews.com.
At the time of the interview, Griffin suggested some suits could be filed in small claims court and that his firm would be monitoring the ongoing situation.
Scrambling to Respond
As CUToday.info has been reporting since the system went down in the third week of May during the conversion, VyStar CU has been scrambling to respond to the outage as thousands of members voiced frustrations in social media and local news outlets provided coverage.
VyStar has responded by extending branch hours, including opening select branches on Sundays, and extending its contact center hours. VyStar has also been “proactively refunding fees you may have incurred at VyStar as a result of the online & mobile banking conversion, including for NSFs, overdraft and courtesy pay, credit card, wire, consumer and commercial loan late fees.”
At one point VyStar said it had “40 to 50 people working around the clock on the issue.”
The credit union has been adding functionality via a browser, including announcing over the weekend that members could now conduct internal transfers of funds.
Last week when CUToday.info sought to log into the site, users were often informed there were thousands of people in the queue ahead of them, although the number counted down relatively quickly. When CUToday.info sought to log in on Sunday, June 5, there was no queue.
Video Apology
VyStar has apologized via two video messages, which have been posted on YouTube here and here.