Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
CHIP AND PAIN Visa cards crash across Europe
A RUSSIAN spy boat heading home from Syria gets a taste of its own medicine as a British warship watches it in the Channel.
Portsmouth-based Type 45 destroyer HMS Diamond took over shadowing the Yantar yesterday from the French Navy, MILLIONS of people were unable to make card payments after the Visa network crashed yesterday.
The firm blamed an unexplained “service disruption” for the chaos across the UK and Europe.
Stores were forced to put up signs telling customers they could only accept cash.
Financial tech firm Paymentsense said “all merchants nationwide” were unable to process transactions.
The problem did not appear to affect cash machine withdrawals.
However, there were fears those not able to make card payments would rush to take out money from ATMS ahead of the weekend.
The Bank of England said it was in contact with Visa about the problem.
Visa said the fault was not down to “unauthorised access or a malicious which had followed it across the Bay of Biscay. A Wildcat helicopter from 815 Naval Air Squadron also tracked the ship.
Ben Keith, commanding HMS Diamond, said the vessel “is proud to be doing her part to protect the UK area of interest.” event”. It told the Mirror: “Visa is currently experiencing a service disruption. This incident is preventing some Visa transactions in Europe from being processed. We are investigating the cause and working as quickly as possible to resolve the situation.”
M&S said: “We are unable to accept Visa payments currently.” Sainsbury’s added: “We are doing our best to help out customers and apologise for any inconvenience.” Jay Curtis, 32, had two cards declined at B&Q. He told the BBC: “I had £240 worth of stuff in my trolley. My card just wouldn’t go through.”
One shopper said on Twitter: “Literally dumped my shopping and walked out of Sainsbury’s”, adding he did not have time to get cash.
The outage also hit payments on the Severn Bridge, leading to tailbacks and what one driver called “carnage”.