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BB&T outage locks customers out of accounts

The Winston-Salem, North Carolina-based bank posted a statement on its Twitter page saying the problem persisted on Friday, taking out its online banking, mobile banking app and automated teller machine services.

NORFOLK, Va. (WCNC/WVEC) -- Millions of BB&T customers were unable to access their accounts after a service outage which the bank blames on an equipment malfunction.

Bank officials tweeted many of their servers were unavailable including digital banking, Phone24 and ATMs. They sent another tweet later saying customers could use their debit, credit and prepaid cards.

BB&T blamed the problem on an equipment malfunction in a data center, but provided no further details.

Bank officials have apologized and say they don't believe the issue is related to a cyber-attack.

The problem was first reported Thursday. An outage map showed the biggest impact targeted much of central North Carolina, Atlanta, the Washington area and Philadelphia. Hampton Roads was affected as well.

A statement issued Friday said BB&T customers can use their debit, credit and prepaid cards.

13News Now spoke with one customer who said she was initially worried about her money.

"I wasn't able to get onto my mobile banking so I couldn't like see my balance or anything like that. And couldn't check to see if my direct deposit hit my account," said Karbasiea Brown. But she visited BB&T in downtown Norfolk, where she says bank employees were nice and calmed her fears.

"They were able to check my balance using my information from my card, and give me my withdrawal," said Brown.

BB&T officials said they were working on the issue and would continue to update customers on Twitter and their website.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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