Visa outage (01/06)

[londonbridge]

Can't see any reports of anyone on here being impacted by yesterdays problems with the Visa payment system. Finished work, got some shopping on the way home and overheard the self checkout attendant calling a supervisor and saying a customer had had their card rejected on two separate tills. Went into town for the evening using contactless as normal, it was only when I got home and put the news on that I heard about the problems Visa had been having. I then twigged that what I'd seen in the supermarket was probably the beginnings of the problem. Today I've just had a thought and checked my online banking and the fares are showing as a pending transaction as normal, so it looks like the problem had just about been fixed before I started traveling.

 

[AM9]

At least some people had some cash on them. If all this pushing for a cashless society gets too much traction it could be a real disaster.

 

[ForTheLoveOf]

Another reason, if you needed another, why you should have multiple cards on you, preferably of different issuers (Visa, MasterCard and Amex).

 

[Darandio]

Another reason, if you needed another, why you should have multiple cards on you, preferably of different issuers (Visa, MasterCard and Amex).

Which many people can't do of course. Although i'd imagine the majority of these are carrying cash anyway.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Had an Amazon transaction declined which automatically retries, that’s all.

 

[Mag_seven]

Was in my local Morrisons yesterday and only the manned tills were accepting cards, the auto tills were cash only.

 

[Busaholic]

Using the recycling facilities at local Sainsbury's yesterday approx. 4 p.m., witnessed about fifty people queueing at the two cash machines (ten times more than I've ever seen before) so went into store and saw a little old lady being escorted out of the shop with her shopping, looking confused, with the assistant by her side saying she'd have to get cash out to pay for it! Then drove past the petrol station and saw large queues again, with many drivers in the shop apparently trying to pay! Being nosey, I then went to Morrisons and, though there were no queues at the cash machines, at the cigarette/lottery counter a woman was having problems paying contactless, the assistant saying 'we've had some problems with Visa in our petrol station too'. I then interjected to say it was obviously a more widespread problem.

 

[philjo]

It may explain why the VTEC TVM at Leeds was unable to complete the transaction. I couldn’t use the adjacent northern ones as they did not offer plusbus for my journey.
There was a long queue at the ticket office so I used the TPE app and collected the tickets a few minutes later.

 

[birchesgreen]

I have an Amex i use occasionally which serves as a back-up. Indeed i wasn't able to buy my tickets for today's trip with my Visa so used Amex instead.

Its an inconvenience sure but the benefits of the largely cashless society we have greatly outweigh occasional mishaps.

 

[GB]

Amex instead.

Its an inconvenience sure but the benefits of the largely cashless society we have greatly outweigh occasional mishaps.

Not sure you would be so forgiving if you were at the tills with your weekly shop, at a petrol station who then has to rearrange another visit for payment or on a train not able to pay all without your backup card.

"mishaps" like this usually end up costing the economy millions, but what benefits of a cashless society bring vs cashless+cash?

 

[AlterEgo]

Fortunately I missed this as I’m in Asia at the moment, but it could have caused me real problems had the issue spread there.

 

[Adsy125]

I was able to buy something with Google Pay and I managed to buy tickets from GWRs website, admittedly the payment failed the first time. I wonder why it still worked?

 

[birchesgreen]

Not sure you would be so forgiving if you were at the tills with your weekly shop, at a petrol station who then has to rearrange another visit for payment or on a train not able to pay all without your backup card.

"mishaps" like this usually end up costing the economy millions, but what benefits of a cashless society bring vs cashless+cash?

Sure i'd be pissed off but i wouldn't be cutting up my debit card and only using cash from then on

 

[Darandio]

I was able to buy something with Google Pay and I managed to buy tickets from GWRs website, admittedly the payment failed the first time. I wonder why it still worked?

Because it wasn't completely broken, some were going through.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

How many users of the Visa debit card in question are there in the UK?

 

[GB]

How many users of the Visa debit card in question are there in the UK?

It wasn't just a specific Visa debit card that was affected, it was the whole of the Visa system across Europe.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

It wasn't just a specific Visa debit card that was affected, it was the whole of the Visa system across Europe.

That is not an answer to the question that I asked which was specific to the number of those card users in the UK.

 

[Darandio]

How many users of the Visa debit card in question are there in the UK?

At the risk of also being scolded for not answering the exact amount of users, the UK Card Association at the 2016 year end suggested there 96.5 million active Visa Debit cards in the UK.

 

[GB]

The way you phrased your question suggested it was one type of visa debit card. As I said, it was all of the Visa system (so credit cards as well) but if you wan't to get snarky with your replies then look it up for yourself on Google.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

The way you phrased your question suggested it was one type of visa debit card. As I said, it was all of the Visa system (so credit cards as well) but if you wan't to get snarky with your replies then look it up for yourself on Google.

Your knowledge of poetry raises you a considerable number of knowledge levels in my estimation and immediately brought to mind the poem "The Hunting of the Snark" by Lewis Carroll.

 

[Busaholic]

As far as I know (which, admittedly, is not too much) virtually all debit cards in the UK are linked to Visa, and none to MasterCard.

 

[radamfi]

As far as I know (which, admittedly, is not too much) virtually all debit cards in the UK are linked to Visa, and none to MasterCard.

There is a Debit Mastercard as well, although not used by many banks. I have a Metro Bank Debit Mastercard, highly recommended for travelling around the EEA and Switzerland as there are no debit card or cash machine charges in that region. It used to be only available by visiting a branch which are mostly in the south east, and they print out your debit card there and then, but anyone in Britain can now apply for one online.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debit_Mastercard#United_Kingdom

says "Main issuers of Debit Mastercard are Clydesdale Bank (incorporating Yorkshire Bank), Danske Bank, Virgin Money, Metro Bank, Starling Bank and Monzo Bank."

 

[Domh245]

I've definitely got a Master Card debit card, but you are correct in that it is only really the small banks that issue Mastercard Debit (eg Virgin Money, Metrobank, Clydesdale Bank) - I don't know what sort of proportion it'd be though, probably around 1-5% I would guess

 

[Busaholic]

I've definitely got a Master Card debit card, but you are correct in that it is only really the small banks that issue Mastercard Debit (eg Virgin Money, Metrobank, Clydesdale Bank) - I don't know what sort of proportion it'd be though, probably around 1-5% I would guess

I said I didn't know too much, but I was a retailer for thirty years and, until I gave up my processing machine a couple of years ago, had never processed, or been asked to process, a MasterCard debit card.

 

[gazthomas]

I've just been listening to Money Box on Radio 4 which considered the outage as unprecedented for Visa. There was a lot of speculation on what caused the outage but no real facts.

 

[Domh245]

I said I didn't know too much, but I was a retailer for thirty years and, until I gave up my processing machine a couple of years ago, had never processed, or been asked to process, a MasterCard debit card.

MasterCard debit is relatively new to the UK of course (turn of the decade roughly it'd seem), it was preceded by Maestro (and switch) before that - although I think I would be correct in saying that the last major bank to issue Mastercard/Maestro debit cards were RBS group - I'm fairly certain my friend had a youth current account with NatWest with the 2 circle logo on it at the least.

Interestingly enough, whilst looking this up, I discovered that Santander will be moving to Debit Mastercard next year

 

[transmanche]

I have a Metro Bank Debit Mastercard, highly recommended for travelling around the EEA and Switzerland as there are no debit card or cash machine charges in that region.

You're right in that the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) means that banks can't charge more for euro-denominated transactions elsewhere in the SEPA than they would for domestic transactions. It works for credit transfers and direct debits as well as for card payments - so someone with an Irish bank account can set up a direct debit with a French or German company as easily as they would with an Irish one.

However, the reason Metro Bank doesn't charge you for using your debit card in the SEPA isn't anything inherent in it being a Debit Mastercard, but purely a commercial decision by Metro Bank. (Nationwide do the same with a Visa Debit card on their Flex Plus account - although that is one of those fee-paying bank accounts which includes travel insurance and breakdown cover, etc)

 

[Busaholic]

MasterCard debit is relatively new to the UK of course (turn of the decade roughly it'd seem), it was preceded by Maestro (and switch) before that - although I think I would be correct in saying that the last major bank to issue Mastercard/Maestro debit cards were RBS group - I'm fairly certain my friend had a youth current account with NatWest with the 2 circle logo on it at the least.

Interestingly enough, whilst looking this up, I discovered that Santander will be moving to Debit Mastercard next year

I'm sure you're right about RBS group. I've been with Nat West. personally and business-wise, seemingly forever (even had a Westminster Bank a/c before Nat West created in 1970!). When we applied to register our shop for Access (a forerunner to MasterCard in the UK) in 1988 I received a personal visit from a sales director. first to announce our application had been successful, then to tell me I'd been selected to receive the first Switch card issued in S.W. England, and he'd be grateful to receive feedback from me about using it. It's too long ago now to remember all the detail, but I had great trouble using it for about three months, as no others seemed to exist in my area, and certainly ATMs wouldn't accept it! I do remember my own bank branch looking at the card with great suspicion, as though I'd concocted it myself. I did hear a story later about why I'd been selected for the 'trial', but it may have been apocryphal.

 

[radamfi]

However, the reason Metro Bank doesn't charge you for using your debit card in the SEPA isn't anything inherent in it being a Debit Mastercard, but purely a commercial decision by Metro Bank

Oh yes, I was only mentioning the no charge bit as an aside. It used to be charge free across the world but it is now restricted to the SEPA area. Debit Mastercards from some other banks are very expensive when used abroad.