Topic: Visa card network crashes - page 2. (Read 338 times)

This could serve as one example of why a cashless society may not be the best option to pursue. Paper money never "crashes" or suffers "hardware failure". The reliability, greater efficiency and lower barrier to entry, in terms of merchant gateways not being necessary to conduct regular business can all be advantages which are difficult to discount that are intrinsic to paper money.

It could also illustrate one area where bitcoin and crypto currencies have a distinct advantage versus other electronic forms of payment such as credit cards, which is to say: greater reliability and decreased downtime.

Consumers may not be able to purchase a cup of coffee with bitcoin but at least they can rest assured their payment network won't crash or be at great risk for credit card numbers being "hacked" in the way other payment networks are on a daily basis.

Yeah, but how often do those incidents happens? Like every 20 years on average? This is the first one I’ve heard so far.

The lesson here is people should always have physical cash in their pockets. I also dont know why the cryptocurrency people, especially Bitcoiners, are so fast to jump in on this minor incident and say I told you so.

The lesson here is people should always have physical cash in their pockets. I also dont know why the cryptocurrency people, especially Bitcoiners, are so fast to jump in on this minor incident and say I told you so.

I have been a "victim" of the VISA crash . Quite embarrassing when you're at the supermarket and no other payment method to pay...
6.5€ only in my pocket, I was in shame looking like I have no money on my account. I had to back at home to take a bank cheque... I couldn't get cash with the ATM machine.

The best feature in terms of it being a payment tool is that all transactions are final after their first confirmation, while CC payments and other service payments take 60-180 days to become final, and even then it can technically still be reversed. In other words, Bitcoin isn't slower, but actually faster with transaction settle times in mind. People don't appreciate Bitcoin enough, but it will come eventually.

This failures are normal. Even with the fiat system, the banks do have there own issues coming from network failures and congestion. Cryptos also have the hacking problems from personal wallet to exchanges.

According to Visa officials, the latest statement the outage was caused by hardware failure it wasn't malicious event. They also apologize to the customers for shorting out the issue. The payment system was back to normal after 5 hours of failure. Here is the link to the first article on Visa Hardware failure https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2018/jun/01/visa-outage-payment-chaos-after-card-network-crashes-live-updates

Yeah, but how often do those incidents happens? Like every 20 years on average? This is the first one I’ve heard so far.

For me, that’s not the problem, it’s rather that if your number is a sequence of ones and zeroes stored in a bank, that bank or the government have the power to take it from you, whereas if you have bitcoin, (and you hold your private keys) you have the power. This is a clear advantage of bitcoin vs cash, because holding large amounts of cash at home to retain the power is impractical.

Firm apologises to millions left unable to pay for goods and services across UK and rest of Europe

Visa’s payment system is operating at “full capacity” after a hardware failure affected customers in the UK and the rest of Europe on Friday.

A statement posted on the Visa Europe website in the early hours of Saturday said: “Visa Europe’s payment system is now operating at full capacity, and Visa account holders can now use Visa for any of their purchases and at ATMs, as they normally would.”

The issue was not associated with any unauthorised access or cyber-attack, the statement said.

Millions of people were left unable to pay for goods and services across Europe after the unprecedented crash, which began at around 2.30pm.

Visa apologised late on Friday, saying it had fallen “well short” of its goal to ensure cards worked reliably at all times.

Major retailers had earlier confirmed that card purchases were failing. Queues built up at petrol stations and shopping was left at supermarket tills as customers were unable to pay.

Lisa Eagleton-Muir, 44, who had come to London to audition for the Great British Sewing Bee, could not buy any food at King’s Cross station for her return rail journey to Newcastle.

“I’ve only got two cards and they’re both Visa. I tried to buy my tea in M&S and a cafe but they were both rejected. I don’t know what I’m going to do. It’s a long journey home with no food.” She later found she could withdraw money from a cash machine.

A spokesman for the supermarket chain Asda said some payments had gone through but others had not.

“When you try to pay something, it sends a message to Visa and then Visa have to send a message back to the chip and pin machine to say this is OK and then the banks are in between at some point. The message that is coming back to the chip and pin, that is where the fault is,” the spokesman said.

It is understood the Bank of England immediately contacted Visa to find out when its system would be back up and running. One banking industry source said: “There is never a good time for the payments system to go down but a Friday afternoon, when there is a flood of people leaving work, must be among the worst.”

In Spain, the Guardia Civil sent a tweet aimed at reassuring those affected by the system failure. Beneath a picture of Johnny Depp as a shocked Captain Jack Sparrow, the force said: “Stay calm. If you can’t pay it’s not because you’ve been robbed or hacked. Visa is suffering a service crash in Europe that’s stopping payments going through in its cards.”

Bank customers in the UK were still able to obtain cash from ATMs, which led to large queues forming at cash machines.

The Visa spokesman said on Friday: “The issue was the result of a hardware failure. We have no reason to believe this was associated with any unauthorised access or malicious event.”

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2018/jun/01/visa-card-network-crashes-and-sparks-payment-chaos