TreasuryDirect Site Hits Snags; New Rate Set for I Bonds

The U.S. government’s TreasuryDirect.gov website appeared to experience problems for at least a short while Friday morning, social media posts and website-monitoring services indicated.

Difficulties with the Treasury Department-operated website, which allows investors to purchase U.S. savings bonds, happened around the same time the agency posted the new, lower interest rate for inflation-linked Series I Savings Bonds — 4.3% for bonds issued from May 1 through Nov. 30 this year.

To receive the 6.89% rate for I bonds issued from Nov. 1, 2022, through April 30, investors had to complete their purchases by 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time on Thursday, which wouldn’t necessarily explain why consumers encountered problems logging into TreasuryDirect on Friday.

The Downdetector website at on Friday stated that user reports indicated possible problems with TreasuryDirect. A graph there showed reports starting to rise shortly after 7 a.m., peaking at 94 after 9 a.m., then dropping within the hour. Outage reports began to climb again after 11 a.m.

Downdetector also indicated about 20 problem reports Thursday night around 10 a.m., two hours before the cutoff to buy I bonds at the 6.89% rate.

IsItDownRightNow?, another status-monitoring site, didn’t show current issues, but two individuals commented on the message board there that they couldn’t access TreasuryDirect Friday. “Cant access the site from my home PC or my cell phone,” one user identified as Aaron Michael said.

A ThinkAdvisor reporter at one point saw a message on the Treasury site that said, “TreasuryDirect is unavailable. We apologize for the inconvenience and ask that you try again later,” but soon found the site to be available again.

Meanwhile, a few Twitter users reported problems as well, including a self-described stock speculator who tweeted at 9:19 a.m. that the site appeared to be down.