A worldwide Microsoft tech issue has led to chaos amongst retailers throughout the UK as shops have been left unable to carry out card payments.
Sainsbury’s, Co-op, Waitrose, Halfords and Waterstones are among those that have been hit by the outage, with many shops resorting to taking cash payments only.
Waitrose customers took to X, formerly Twitter, to say they had been forced to pay in cash in some stores after issues with contactless payments. However, the upmarket grocer has since confirmed that its service are mostly restored and back to normal.
A spokesperson for the supermarket said: “Waitrose now taking contactless payments largely as normal, as well as still processing payments by Chip and PIN and cash. We’re also continuing to take orders via Waitrose.com.
“For clarity, we have been able to take card payments through the day – we were just briefly limited on contactless payments. Chip & PIN and cash were available though. John Lewis was not impacted by this issue.”
Just back from Waitrose where card machines have gone down. It’s absolute chaos. By the time I got home my edamame beans were almost defrosted. Stay safe out there. #outage https://t.co/yBBkslUsIQ
— Duncan Woods (@the__DAW) July 19, 2024
Earlier this morning, Morrisons said it had been experiencing issues, but confirmed it had now resolved them. Meanwhile it is understood Co-op is still facing difficulties, as it took to social media to apologise and promise customers it is working on creating a solution to the issues.
Co-op said on X: “We have been affected by the global IT outage, unfortunately. Hopefully the issues will be fixed soon!”
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Similarly, Booths alerted social media users it is “only accepting cash” as it was “experiencing some technical issues due to a global issue out of our control, but we’re still open and ready to welcome you”.
Meanwhile, Halfords notified users on X it was having trouble connecting customers to its support team, while Naked Wines apologised for delays to deliveries as its courier Yodel was experiencing trouble.
We are currently experiencing issues caused by a global outage that may result in customers having difficulties contacting our Customer Support team, apologies for any inconvenience caused.
— Halfords (@Halfords_uk) July 19, 2024
Delivery Update
Our delivery courier, Yodel, has been affected by today’s global IT outage. This is causing some delays with deliveries and impacting the accuracy of the tracking information we usually provide.
— Naked Wines UK (@NakedWines) July 19, 2024
UK retailers facing IT issues include:
- Sainsbury’s
- Morrisons
- Waitrose
- Co-op
- Halfords
- Aldi
- Waterstones
- Naked Wines
- Booths
- Tesco Ireland
The problems arose after major issues at Microsoft crashed computer systems globally, affecting business’ ability to access its 365 services and apps.
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