BBVA faced a storm of criticism from former customers of the Portland-based Simple neobank, who said they were locked out of their accounts and unable to get help from BBVA call centers over the weekend. It is an awkward predicament for the $105.1 billion BBVA, which in 2018 showcased Amelia, an automated chatbot designed to resolve complaints and enhance customer experience.

BBVA deploys Amelia, which leverages natural language processing, at its Mexican call centers but not in the U.S., a BBVA spokesperson told Bank Automation News.

BBVA, which acquired Simple in 2014 for $117 million, pivoted Simple accounts to BBVA accounts on Saturday, and while the accounts were converted successfully, according to a BBVA spokesperson, the high volume of customers attempting to enroll in mobile and online banking at once led to “technical difficulties” with the enrollment process. That, in turn, caused high call volume to BBVA’s call centers, overwhelming the system and creating “longer than normal wait times.”

Debit cards, ATMs, checks and scheduled transactions continued to function as usual, according to BBVA. But Twitter told a different story. Numerous customers reported they were locked out of their accounts while others claimed they were disconnected when they did reach BBVA call centers. BBVA responded on Twitter that call center employees were unable to hear some callers due to technical issues.

“We know this conversion process was not smooth for our incoming Simple customers and we sincerely apologize to them,” BBVA’s spokesperson said. “We are working to make it right, including extending hours in our call center and adding staff to handle the incoming calls.”

In 2018, BBVA reported on its website that it was “at the vanguard” of the automation transformation. A June 2020 customer-use story noted that the bank had “hired” Amelia specifically to deal with a large number of customer service calls. Amelia “has the ability to detect and adapt itself to the emotions of the speaker but can also take decisions in real time and even suggest improvements to the processes it has been trained to carry out,” the BBVA article noted.

When BBVA acquired Simple, the online bank had 100,000 customers, and the deal meant BBVA paid $1,170 per customer at the time, according to one industry analyst estimate. During a 2017 earnings call, BBVA said Simple was growing “very well,” acquiring more than 30,000 customers per month with a low cost of acquisition.

BBVA reported an efficiency ratio of 63.26 in Q1 2021, down from the previous year’s ratio of 68.08. An efficiency ratio measures a company’s ability to use its assets to generate income. The bank’s technology spend was not broken out in the latest earnings report.