Oct. 28 is investors’ last chance to buy I Bonds that earn a 9.62% interest rate. Yet a surge in demand for the inflation-adjusted bonds has overwhelmed the TreasuryDirect site and the Treasury Department said it cannot guarantee orders will be completed in time.
Many investors managed to beat the clock and the tech issues. As of 4 p.m. ET, nearly 69,000 accounts had been created and more than $710 million in I Bonds purchased on Friday alone, Treasury said. That brings this week’s I Bond sales to about $3.4 billion so far, Treasury said. Five thousand new accounts were created per hour Friday, Treasury said.
Michael Erat and his wife, Linda Erat, were among the thousands of people who had success.
After eight hours of wrestling with the TreasuryDirect website, Mr. Erat purchased his $10,000 I Bond allotment.
“It was an eight-hour struggle,” said Mr. Erat, who lives in northeast Pennsylvania.
Mrs. Erat managed to make the purchase in about half the time of her husband.
Others have still not been able to access the TreasuryDirect site or log on to their account to buy I Bonds. The interest rate is expected to drop to about 6.47% starting Nov. 1, when the new figure is announced.
Safe, staid inflation-adjusted Series I savings bonds don’t capture much of the investing spotlight in most years. They became breakout stars of 2022 as inflation reached a four-decade high, markets plunged, and investors searched for a safe place to park their money.
As the deadline to get the 9.62% rate approached this week, the government’s TreasuryDirect site, the only place investors can directly purchase I Bonds, became one of the most visited federal websites, officials said, and has experienced intermittent outages for several days this week.
Still, many investors continue to run into difficulties accessing and logging on to the site.
Todd Miller, who lives in Camarillo, Calif., hasn’t been able to unlock his TreasuryDirect account. He has been trying for several days to get assistance, calling the site’s help number and waiting over two hours. He was told Friday by a customer service representative that due to system outages, he wouldn’t be able to get his account unlocked in time to snag the 9.62% I Bond rate.
“I think the government should extend the deadline on this sale,” said Mr. Miller.
“We have tripled TreasuryDirect’s capacity in the last day and continue to see customers successfully create accounts and purchase bonds at record levels. Any additional updates to TreasuryDirect during the final days of the rate window, such as a delay to the Nov. 1 rate change, would pose significant risk to the operational integrity of the system,” said a Treasury spokesman.
“Due to unprecedented requests for new accounts, we can’t guarantee customers will be able to complete a purchase at the current 9.62% rate by the Oct. 28 deadline. The TreasuryDirect system has been and continues to process the payments that have been completed,” a spokesman said.
If a customer receives a confirmation that their purchase has been made or completed by 11:59:59 p.m. ET on Oct. 28, then the payment will be processed, a spokesman said.
The Treasury Department said Friday that it would be taking the TreasuryDirect account management system offline Saturday and Sunday for scheduled maintenance.
“The maintenance period will ensure TreasuryDirect is able to successfully process the unprecedented volume of I bond purchases made in the past 24 hours,” Treasury said on its site.
Customers who complete an I Bond purchase before the scheduled maintenance begins will receive 9.62% for six months, Treasury said.
TreasuryDirect will reopen for account creation and purchases on Monday, Oct. 31. Beginning Monday, purchases will receive the rate that will be published on Tuesday, Nov. 1, Treasury said.
Users regularly take to social media to complain about the TreasuryDirect website and sometimes go to great lengths to make their I Bond purchases.
“The TreasuryDirect website isn’t known for its user friendliness,” said Elliot Pepper, a financial planner in Baltimore.
It isn’t just people trying to buy I Bonds who are frustrated with the site’s outages.
Investors can’t buy or redeem T-Bonds, Treasury notes, or T-bills through TreasuryDirect if they can’t access the site or log in due to the high demand.
Write to Veronica Dagher at Veronica.Dagher@wsj.com
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