Payment services resumed across Australia after a disruption on Saturday afternoon left some customers unable to complete purchases at major retailers, with Mastercard blaming a \u201cscheduled system update\u201d for the outage.<\/p>\n
Reports spread during the afternoon as shoppers said card transactions and digital wallet payments were failing during a global Mastercard outage.<\/p>\n
Customers described problems with bank cards as well as mobile wallet purchases, including Apple Pay and Android Pay, when linked to Mastercard.<\/p>\n
Businesses in parts of Sydney and Brisbane reported confusion at check-outs as some transactions went through while others were declined. <\/p>\n
At one stage, retailers were asking customers to try another card, use cash or return later as queues built and purchases were abandoned.<\/p>\n
Cafes and grocers in Sydney\u2019s eastern suburbs were among those affected by the outage, with Chargrill Charlie\u2019s at Charing Cross explaining the problem had continued for about an hour.<\/p>\n
Owner Ron Shaked said the store had \u201chad to turn customers away\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey haven\u2019t been able to pay, people were having to wait a long time and they\u2019ve left because they were sick of waiting,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Frenchmans Rd Pharmacy manager Joseph Riakos said staff were struggling to explain the issue to customers because the disruption appeared to hit some cards but not others.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re having to say either use cash or to come back another time,\u201d Mr Riakos said during the outage.<\/p>\n
A Brisbane woman said she was left embarrassed when her payment was declined at a Bowen Hills cafe despite having funds in her account.<\/p>\n
\u201cI checked the accounts and the money was there but every attempt was declined,\u201d she told NewsWire.<\/p>\n
\u201cI never have cash but luckily for once I did or I would\u2019ve had to leave.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was embarrassing enough as it was \u2013 I know the money was there but you still feel like a bit of a fraud when it fails.\u201d<\/p>\n
Businesses across Australia posted on social media to warn customers about the Mastercard issue as some payments were being declined.<\/p>\n
Earlier in the outage, Commonwealth Bank said some Mastercard card payments were being declined \u201cdue to a global MasterCard issue\u201d and advised customers to insert their card and select savings to make payments via eftpos.<\/p>\n
Downdetector, a website that tracks user-reported service outages, logged a surge in Mastercard complaints between 2pm and 4pm, including more than 1700 reports by 3pm on Saturday.<\/p>\n
In a statement to NewsWire, a Mastercard spokesperson said a \u201cscheduled system update\u201d caused Mastercard transactions to be declined for a period of time.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe situation has been resolved and all systems are working as normal,\u201d the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Payment services resumed across Australia after a disruption on Saturday afternoon left some customers unable to complete purchases…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":815374,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[346036,346044,346051,346026,346061,346079,346065,346040,346047,346039,346083,346087,346045,346058,346086,346069,346070,346085,12085,346066,346028,346019,346029,346055,42473,1246,346033,3101,346038,9074,346030,346074,346048,346071,346076,73242,3446,10471,9194,346041,346018,346024,346020,8701,346053,346046,346032,4628,346075,346027,346072,346057,165,346052,346064,346060,55760,232901,346062,301500,346021,346077,9006,3590,7531,93486,346084,346056,665,9402,346068,6318,346078,3415,44070,108,346023,346063,346059,346022,346080,346042,7125,28671,346035,10651,74,346031,346082,346034,346054,346081,346049,346037,346025,255592,346073,346043,318991,346067,2384,346050],"class_list":["post-815373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mobile","tag-s-eastern-suburbs","tag-2pm-and-4pm","tag-3pm","tag-a-scheduled-system-update","tag-a-bit","tag-a-bowen-hills-cafe","tag-a-disruption","tag-a-fraud","tag-a-global-mastercard-issue","tag-a-global-mastercard-outage","tag-a-long-time","tag-a-mastercard-spokesperson","tag-a-payment-network-fault","tag-a-period","tag-a-statement","tag-a-surge","tag-a-website","tag-about-an-hour-owner","tag-afternoon","tag-all-systems","tag-and-grocers","tag-android-pay","tag-another-card","tag-another-time","tag-apple-pay","tag-australia","tag-bank-cards","tag-businesses","tag-card-transactions","tag-cash","tag-cash-or-return","tag-chargrill-charlie","tag-charing-cross","tag-check-outs","tag-checkout-chaos","tag-commonwealth-bank","tag-confusion","tag-customers","tag-digital-payments","tag-digital-wallet-payments","tag-eftpos-downdetector","tag-either-use-cash","tag-every-attempt","tag-funds","tag-her-account","tag-her-payment","tag-major-retailers","tag-mastercard","tag-mastercard-complaints","tag-mastercard-services","tag-mastercard-transactions","tag-mastercard-businesses","tag-mobile","tag-mobile-wallet-purchases","tag-more-than-1700-reports","tag-mr-riakos","tag-newswire","tag-newswire-news","tag-one-stage","tag-parts","tag-payment-outage","tag-payment-services","tag-payments","tag-people","tag-problems","tag-purchases","tag-queues","tag-rd-pharmacy-manager-joseph-riakos","tag-reports","tag-retailers","tag-ron-shaked","tag-saturday","tag-saturday-in","tag-savings","tag-shoppers","tag-social-media","tag-some-card","tag-some-cards","tag-some-customers","tag-some-mastercard-card-payments","tag-some-payments","tag-some-transactions","tag-staff","tag-sydney","tag-sydney-and-brisbane","tag-system-update","tag-technology","tag-the-accounts","tag-the-afternoon","tag-the-disruption","tag-the-issue","tag-the-mastercard-issue","tag-the-money","tag-the-outage","tag-the-outage-a-brisbane-woman","tag-the-problem","tag-the-situation","tag-the-spokesperson","tag-the-store","tag-their-card","tag-time","tag-user-reported-service-outages"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=815373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815373\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/815374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=815373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=815373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=815373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}