Visa payment disruption hits UK & Europe
 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-44335804 Thank heavens for Amex... :D

Re: Visa payment disruption hits UK
 

Probably the Russians..... They are winning the cyber war.

Re: Visa payment disruption hits UK
 

Asda near me is cash only!!!

Re: Visa payment disruption hits UK
 

No problem with my Visa debit card in Sainsbury's this afternoon.

Re: Visa payment disruption hits UK
 

Coming to think about it, it might explain the massive queue and stressed punters at the petrol station I've just been to .

Re: Visa payment disruption hits UK
 

We were fine earlier today doing some food shopping

Re: Visa payment disruption hits UK
 

I've had three failed so far. Two multiple attempts at one and a separate at another. But a fourth separate that went through fine. The latter isn't showing as a pending payment either though.

Re: Visa payment disruption hits UK
 

Nothing to worry about, it's simply a test run by the Illuminati to see how near they are to total domination of the financial sectors :D

Re: Visa payment disruption hits UK
 

Lidl, Home Bargains and Aldi were having problems this afternoon, and they were running out of change.

Re: Visa payment disruption hits UK
 

No issue in Spain :)

Re: Visa payment disruption hits UK & Europe
 

Things like this are why it's a good idea to have a second card, of a different type, from a different bank!

Re: Visa payment disruption hits UK & Europe
 

Totally. My Visa debit card failed at Pizza Express last night but my trusty Mastercard from another bank worked.
A good idea to have cards from separate organisations in case of cyber crime these days. Also travelling in the 90s, some cards were accepted in some countries whilst others were declined despite having the right logos etc on.

Re: Visa payment disruption hits UK & Europe
 

Good grief, that was dreadful. Lightning and storms for the previous 4 days and I was pissed as I needed to use the time to get some stuff for our daughter's overseas trip coming up soon. Was the only day available.

So as a back story my hubby loathes anywhere that does not take Amex. he uses it as his daily driver all the way - whenever and wherever he can. So for her (daughter's) school stuff it was all cheap(ish) throw away stuff that is easily available in rather low end stores. She'll only use it once, on this trip and that is it.

So...we go into a few stores and one (in particular) which had a bunch of rather disposable stuff to use as a one off (Shoezone). We spend like 40 minutes trying stuff on and my daughter finally settles on 3 items (needed for one week lol) and we go to pay and the ladies at the till say "sorry the card reader is out" which is totally wrong. I could have paid in cash but he was so pissed off he basically said to them "it is not the reader it is your issue as a store". He had no clue, either way.

Then the ladies behind the counter started saying stuff like "there is a cash point / ATM outside" and that really started pissing everyone off so rather than argue it out with them he basically just said "we'll use somewhere else". They looked smug like it was going to trip us up for the rest of the day and he checked every place we went to and we only went in if the place took Amex. All of them worked fine. Shoezone closed at like 5 30 but if it didn't he would have gone back in and said to them "had y'all taken Amex we would have bought stuff from your store as it would have worked".

So anyway, we got back home and he turns on the TV, it is on the news network and headlines read that Visa screwed up and he is like "see, Amex really would have fixed this, ha ha ha ha". Smug jerk. His basic approach to life is "if they can't afford to take Amex as a payment method then they are not worth shopping at". Sadly, yesterday validated all of that for him.

:mad::mad::mad::mad:

Re: Visa payment disruption hits UK & Europe
 

So true though half the problem was with retailers putting carte blanche signs saying that it was "cash only". I don't think they even considered allowing customers to try other (non visa) based credit or debit cards.

It is disappointing and rather sad that so many people (businesses) decided to just assume that it was the reader...if folks tried using other credit cards with a payment processor like Mastercard or Amex / Diners / JCB (though granted those 3 are nowhere near as widely accepted) or a different debit card PP like Maestro etc (though again not as frequently used) then the chaos that ensued yesterday would not have been so bad.

Your advice though, is very good and if there is some silver lining it is that people will try to dilute their concentration on just one card / issuer / PP and bank. There is way too much of that in the UK.

Re: Visa payment disruption hits UK & Europe
 

Visa provide the processing system for some retailers which was also down meaning no card types were working in some places.

Re: Visa payment disruption hits UK & Europe
 

Was the entire processing system down or just the card acceptance?

That is totally different to what I understood but it would explain a lot of the stores refusing to take card altogether - so I may have been hasty there to be jump down their throats.

It would also explain a lot...stores like Shoezone were saying that it was the entire area that was out - they must have assumed that the entire place (whole mall) used a visa processor.

Still worked fine in Debenhams / H&M / River Island etc so I guess places that use Amex require a different type of Payment processor?

Re: Visa payment disruption hits UK & Europe
 

I like to have some cash in my wallet just in case. Saves the embarrassment factor if the card won't go through.

Re: Visa payment disruption hits UK & Europe
 

Sadly give it a few years and we will have a cashless society..

Re: Visa payment disruption hits UK & Europe
 

I was going to say though, what about withdrawals? I mean given that a majority of customers use Visa debit / Electron (at worst, if those are still even issued?) then would it not effect ATMs? (I am only asking as I didn't even try to draw out money yesterday).

Only it is rather a compromising situation given that 99% of debit cards are all Visa based.

In fact Santander just recently announced that they were the first of the major banks to return to a MC debit card:

https://www.ft.com/content/7d6f5e48-...e-22951a2d8493

I can't C&P from that article as it violates the T&C of the Pearson group / FT but here is a more accessible link if you are not an FT subscriber:

https://news.sky.com/story/about-tur...-visa-11355944

This talks a lot about the discrepancy between payment processors.

Given the the processing system for an entire entity is Visa based, a failure from them does kind of disproportionately and unfairly effect MC I suppose. So technically MC users would have had to go to an ATM, draw out (off their debit card), then go back into a store and pay because a Visa PS failed. Seems pretty harsh but I have a conflict of interest given my visa cards / the products I have with them (even if the PS and PP trade as separate entities) so I am choosing not to be too angry about this (rather conveniently) after all, lol. (At least I am honest about it!) Sucks for Mastercard as a company.

Re: Visa payment disruption hits UK & Europe
 

Won't even be "real" money, just credits.

Re: Visa payment disruption hits UK & Europe
 

There was a lot of talk before this of having a cashless society. This hopefully (this experience) will convince folks that some opening of the payment market and more competition (along with infrastructure) will make it easier to allow smooth transitions going forward in instances of an outage, like yesterday. Not only is a cashless society inevitable but a lot of people are looking forward to it so the more work that is put into now, the better off the effectiveness of it will be, long term.

Re: Visa payment disruption hits UK & Europe
 

Hmm, just having a look at my account online and i seem to have a couple of triple transactions showing up in pending from yesterday. Only used the card twice, once in RS McColls for £2 and once in Morrisons for £8.70 so not huge amounts but both are showing as x3 so been charged £32 for them.

I'll leave it and see if they sort it out before they go from pending to done but i'd have been pissed if i'd bought something for a larger amount that got tripled and ate up my available balance.

Re: Visa payment disruption hits UK & Europe
 

Pending doesn't really mean that much and they' ll probably disappear. Self service petrol pumps have been making £100 pending payments on folks cards, before they're even dispensed anything ! A bit ott, and as you say does affect your available balance.

Re: Visa payment disruption hits UK & Europe
 

Some people are claiming that PT's are showing as "purchases" that went through but that should be pretty easy to get refunded back from a lender or bank. It is indeed kind of annoying and frustrating if it eats into your available, like you said.

Keep an eye on it but good proactive thinking to keep an eye on it early. :)

Re: Visa payment disruption hits UK & Europe
 

Cash withdrawals are different to debit card purchases. They are done through your bank acc details rather than processed through Visa.

---------- Post added at 00:11 ---------- Previous post was at 00:09 ----------

Pending transactions reserved in error will usually drop back within a few days.

Re: Visa payment disruption hits UK & Europe
 

So for people paying through their bank account / debit card it probably didn't matter too much either way - just those of us using a CC that were screwed around.

Still, no bad feelings / ill will towards Visa - these things happen.

Re: Visa payment disruption hits UK & Europe
 

I made a few contactless visa payments and they all went through fine.

So not sure what the actual issue was.