Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Visa Card Payment Systems Go Down Across Europe (bleepingcomputer.com)

Posted by msmash on from the outage-report dept.

Catalin Cimpanu, reporting for BleepingComputer: The Visa card payment system is currently down across Europe. Users across the continent have reported problems during the day when attempting to make payments using their Visa cards. A Visa spokesperson confirmed the outage but did not reveal any other details, such as its cause or its scale. Bank social media accounts also confirmed the outage and informed customers of the issue. Users across the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Romania, and Hungary have confirmed problems with payments, but the problems are believed to affect all European countries.

4 of 108 comments (clear)

  1. I was going to suggest... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    And they want us to all go cashless with companies like Visa handling the transactions?

    1. Re:I was going to suggest... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Doesnt matter how many they process if reliability is a problem. This is the 6th major VisaNet outage in the UK since xmas. The system is not reliable no matter how much you want to pretent

    2. Re:I was going to suggest... by cayenne8 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Why not? Do you have a payment network that can process in excess of a 100 billion transactions in a year?

      What if ALL the forms of electronic payment go down?

      Cash doesn't depend on electrons flying between computers.

      If nothing else, it is good as a failsafe method of transaction.

      Go 100% cashless.....a good terrorist hit on the power grid, or even a bunch of banks, and you've fscked....

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
  2. Re:Good news! by Jahta · · Score: 3, Insightful

    However usually after an outage. The IT Company will fix that problem so it doesn't happen again. Thus after every outage, the system normally gets more secure. Especially if an outage causes so much revenue loss.

    Except you can't guarantee 100% availability of any electronic system. There will always be scenarios that will take down at least part of the system; power outages, network outages, etc. Recently my local coffee shop's card reader terminal was down for a couple of days. Without the ability to accept cash they would have been unable to trade.

    Paper money and coins are not reliable as well. If I have a $100.00 bill, not all locations will take that large bill. Heck I remember when I was in college and I had a freaken $5.00 bill that I couldn't get broken up to singles. I even wen't to the campus post office, to buy a stamp, and they didn't have change so they gave me the stamp for free. All I wanted to do is use the vending machine to get a Soda.

    The cash in your pocket is about as reliable as it gets. Visa customers are being advised to use their cards to withdraw cash from their issuing bank's ATMs. It's only the retailers that have already gone cashless (and there are some) that will have a problem right now.