MSE News: Visa outage across Europe leaves shoppers struggling to pay

robin58

molerat wrote: »

Not only do I ensure I have more than one card in my wallet I also keep both Visa and Mastercard.

Same here. I have a Visa and Mastercard plus if desperate an Amex card.

I also have two current accounts with 2 different banks which systems are separate from each other.

Plus at least £30 cash in my wallet.

Never been unable to pay a bill yet.

Anthorn

Personally, I don't have any Visa cards at all and all my cards are MasterCard debit and credit and American Express. Yet I was unable to use the Mastercards because card terminals were turned off and that included Sainsbury and Aldi. In addition there were long queues at ATMs.

I have seen news stories about retailers complaining that they are losing business but they deserve to lose business when they take the easy solution by disabling terminals and therefore refuse cards which are working.

Lastly, my decision to get rid of all my VISA cards is justified: I wonder if MasterCard and Amex is now going to go down lol

agrinnall

capital0ne wrote: »

I've also heard that it's a massive hack but the banks will never admit that.

Heard from the fabled bloke down the pub no doubt, given that the cause has been revealed to be a hardware failure.

Midnighter

No bother for me, but then I always pay with cash! Please feel free to call me a luddite.

alanq

Anthorn wrote: »

Personally, I don't have any Visa cards at all and all my cards are MasterCard debit and credit and American Express. Yet I was unable to use the Mastercards because card terminals were turned off and that included Sainsbury and Aldi.

I was queuing in ALDI when I heard that they were taking cash only. Fortunatly I had enough cash to pay for my basket. However, I had intended to pay with a Mastercard but was not offered the chance to do so.


My next shop visit was to Iceland where they happily accepted my Mastercard.

Mabel2012

I still have a chequebook which I use to pay workmen and to send a money gift to young relatives who live abroad.

As I only had Visa cards for payment yesterday and about £10 in cash, I had to leave my shopping in the supermarket. Would a cheque, guaranteed by a Visa debit card on the same account have been accepted by the major supermarkets yesterday or was it cash or certain electronic cards only.

I normally carry some cash but that gradually gets used up until I top up via cashback in the supermarket. All my cards are Visa ones, that is by accident not design. I have First Direct, Barclays and Nationwide Visa cards and I thought I was protected against problems with any one of them. I didn't think they could all be affected by the same problem.

Do all banks issue MasterCard and are they debit and or credit cards?

alanq

Mabel2012 wrote: »

Would a cheque, guaranteed by a Visa debit card on the same account have been accepted by the major supermarkets yesterday or was it cash or certain electronic cards only.

Use of Cheque Guarantee cards ended in 2011.

Mabel2012 wrote: »

Do all banks issue MasterCard and are they debit and or credit cards?

Some offer VISA some Mastercard and some a choice. VISA is the most common.
Mastercard offers both credit and debit cards.

borkid

Now if only they still took cheques as .a back up at times like this. Much quicker and easier for all concerned. My hardly used cheque book 'lives' in my handbag just in case. This is especially useful at craft fairs when there is no signal and I've spent all my cash.

Robisere

Apparently it is all back to normal today:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-44341070


And there is no hack involved, it was a hardware issue. Put away the conspiracy theories for another day.

MothballsWallet

agrinnall wrote: »

Heard from the fabled bloke down the pub no doubt, given that the cause has been revealed to be a hardware failure.

Or it's Mark Zuckerberg...