Associated Bank Geo-Blocked

 Earlier this week I went to the Associated Bank website to check my account. What came up on the screen in the familiar green and white colors was a message saying that I was restricted from their website because of my location. They provide an international phone number for assistance. Associated Bank is located in Wisconsin and I live in Minnesota, so I'm not sure why they think I live outside of the USA. 

The first thing I did was try to connect from a different computer, but the same message came up. All of my devices use the same router and modem connected to Comcast's network. Next, I tried to connect using the Associated Bank App on my phone. At first, it would not let me connect. But, when I turned on cellular data, the app connected and let me log into my account. This narrowed the problem down to something on either my modem/router or the path used by Comcast to get to the destination website. I ran a trace route command to see the path the traffic was taking to get to Associated's website. This showed that a server in Chicago owned by GTT.net had two locations for the same IP address. One location was in Chicago and the other was in Europe. I tried contacting them to see why their server was reporting two locations, but did not get anywhere. They kept asking for my service ID (thinking that I was one of their customers). I next tried contacting Associated Bank. They tried to imply that I was running a VPN and that I should contact my Internet provider. I told them that something had changed in their security settings and gave them the IP address of the GTT server that was reporting dual locations. So, they weren't any help either. 

I ran another trace route today and there are only 10 hops, and I do not see the GTT server in the path anymore. But, I'm still getting the same geo-blocking message when I try to connect. At this point, I have three options: Wait for the problem to resolve itself, Start using a VPN service, or find a different bank that isn't blocking traffic from Comcast. Associated did say that others were having the same problem, so they will eventually have to get this resolved. I will wait a few more days, (until monthly bills are due), and then transfer my money to a different bank, if this geo-blocking problem isn't fixed.