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Black Friday Panic at Macy's: People Report Credit Card System Outage (fastcompany.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: Macy's might have celebrated an increase in share price on Black Friday, but it seems like the retailer will end the day with a lot of lost sales. Many of its customers recently took to Twitter to complain that its credit card machines are down, and that they can only pay with cash.
I wonder how many murder / suicides this will result in?
But seriously, do they not load test in the run-up to these extravaganzas?
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
then u cant afford 2 buy it anyway
It has been said that one who values honesty responsible, pays in cash. Credit is for the spoiled, who care more about getting what they want now, to earn it and pay outright
Never borrow money unless it's for something you can make money with.
Did anyone try bitcoin?
They WANT cash to disappear...what better way of seeing how many people still use cash, than have CC machines go down on black Friday? Once they are convinced the majority of people use cards instead of cash, they will outlaw the use of cash because the cards are "safer"...and they will also use an anti criminal element to get rid of cash, since a lot of illegal transactions are in cash. It's for your "safety". Once cash is gone, and everything is an electronic blip, the government can see ANYTHING you do. Don't think THIS can't happen. Walk into a fast food place, swipe for a double cheese burger, fries, shake, get rejected because your last government healthcare check up says your BMI was too high. Try to buy a new sports car, get rejected because you've had too many speeding tickets, or the car doesn't get good mileage. DON'T think it can't happen that if the government needs money, or the bank needs money, they just pull 1% of everyone's account. It's already happened in where? Greece?
If this was a shop selling "weaves" you'd have a point. But it was Macy's so there aren't any black people there.
This is as serious as a natural disaster.
Requiem for the American Dream
I feel no pity whatsoever for the customers but I my heart goes out to the employees who have to maintain a professional and personable presentation when the mob of customers on the other side of the counter get angry and restless.
What you want is WHITE Friday.
TRUMP powa!
Who wouldn't take cash with them when they expect to shop on massively busy/overcrowded events? If you didn't take cash, you have nothing to complain about, learn from this and move on.
Thank you Macy's to help slow down my wife.. i jest.. ;-)
....I don't do Black Fridays.
If stores get the majority of their payments by cashless means, they'll drop the option of paying in cash. This is bad from a privacy, anonymity, and economic class (immigrants and the poor are more likely to be un-banked) perspective. This also puts more power to track purchases in the hands of governments, banks, and marketeers.
I think of the slight inconvenience as doing my part to slow down the slow erosion of privacy in the US.
Seriously ... I love the concept of cash because it's anonymous and "just works". (No need for a whole computerized back-end processing system for someone to be able to accept it from you.) But the way our whole financial system is run today, you're just losing potential buying power if you don't take advantage of credit cards when buying goods or services from legitimate businesses who can accept them.
Not only that, but if I pay with a credit card, I don't have to risk carrying cash around that can get lost or stolen without any recourse. If they steal my credit card(s), all I have to do is call up and report them stolen and I'm off the hook for anything they manage to spend with them.
And while the true usefulness may be debatable at times, my credit cards do offer to extend the factory warranties on products. (I tried to use it one time with a damaged Apple computer and ultimately didn't have any luck. I can't even remember the details anymore, but recall it being kind of a pain. Lots of photos and documentation the card issuer requested from me about the original transaction and problem, only to determine it didn't qualify for compensation.) But at least it's there as a second option. Some may have better luck than I did.
Cash is what I pull out of the bank only in preparation for doing transactions with individuals or events (like local carnivals) where I know they don't accept credit. I might use it to tip at a restaurant, if I have enough of it in my wallet, too. (Just seems like a small favor I can do for restaurant workers to help ensure they're not getting screwed by their employer who might insist on reporting the tips as taxable income.)
The system that would allow more people to get a discount is down. Something tells me management encouraged an upgrade or DR test on that day...
Oh no, wouldn't want the employer to screw them over by preventing them from breaking the law!
...and in a quiet, computer-filled room at Nordstroms' headquarters, a shadowy group sits back and breathes a collective sigh of relief at successfully sabotaging a competitor. "Good job, lads," says the Strike Team leader, "those fuckers at Macy's will never know what hit them."
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
cashiers too lazy to enter in CC#s into the system manually? That's what they did today in Bellingham, WA (Bellis Fair Macy's).