Yahoo Finance EFTPOS down: Outage hits CBA, Woolworths, ANZ and Aus Post customers
A massive EFTPOS outage has hit several major Australian institutions across the countrywide this afternoon, including a number of major banks, NSW Ambulance and Woolworths.
Caltex, ANZ, Australia Post are also among the companies affected.
Down Detector, which tracks outages across Australia, reported a Telstra outage beginning at 2:54pm on Thursday.
Telstra confirmed the outage on Twitter, and apologised to affected Australians.
⚠️ We’re currently looking into an issue affecting services including EFTPOS and access to ATMs. We’re sorry if this impacts you. We’ll keep you updated as we know more.
— Telstra (@Telstra) July 11, 2019
NSW Ambulance
NSW Ambulance confirmed to Yahoo Finance that it has suffered technical difficulties from around 3pm this afternoon.
“A preliminary review indicates the issue is linked to a national Telstra outage.
“NSW Ambulance and E-Health are working with Telstra to manage and resolve the issue.
“NSW Ambulance is continuing to receive Triple Zero (000) calls and respond to medical emergencies and there have been no interruptions to the delivery of emergency services.”
Commonwealth Bank
“We are impacted by an issue with one of our telco providers. It's affecting some of our services. CommBank app and NetBank are up,” the Commonwealth Bank said in a statement on Twitter this afternoon.
“There are issues with the following services: CBA ATMs, CBA EFTPOS terminals, some in branch services as well as issues logging onto CommSec.”
The bank said that its call centre was experiencing a higher volume of calls than usual, and advised those affected to avoid calling about the problem as the bank was already investigating it.
Australia Post
Australia Post made a similar statement, explaining that a “supplier issue” was impacting customers’ abilities to make transactions and use banking services at its outlets.
“We’re working with the supplier to resolve the issue as quickly as possible, and apologise for the inconvenience.”
ANZ Bank
ANZ Bank and its customers are also affected, the bank confirmed on Twitter. It told shoppers that while the issue is affecting many companies, including ANZ, it was working to resolve the issue.
Hi, there appears to be a wide-spread EFTPOS outage at the moment, while this is not isolated to ANZ, please be assured that we are working to have this resolved on our end ASAP. ^AA
— ANZ Australia (@ANZ_AU) July 11, 2019
Westpac Bank
Westpac said some branches and ATMs are currently not working across the Sydney metropolitan region. The major bank said it is working with its external providers to sole the network failure.
We're aware some branches, ATMs & services in Sydney metro are non-operational due to a broader network failure in the region. Our teams are communicating with external providers on when services will be restored & we'll keep you updated. Online banking is working normally.
— Westpac Bank (@Westpac) July 11, 2019
NAB
The National Australia Bank confirmed to the ABC that it was affected by the outage.
Woolworths
Woolworths also confirmed the outage in a statement to Yahoo Finance.
“We're aware of a network issue impacting electronic payments in our stores. Our stores are continuing to trade as our teams are still able to process payments manually at this time,” Woolworths said.
“We're working closely with Telstra to rectify the network issue as quickly as possible. We apologise for the inconvenience and thank our customers for their patience. We'll provide further updates as soon as they come to hand.”
Caltex
Petrol retailer, Caltex said it is also affected and is unable to take calls to its contact centre.
Due to the current Telstra outage we are experiencing challenges with EFTPOS payments in stores nationwide and are unable to receive calls to our contact centre.
We will provide further updates here as we receive them.
Thank you for your patience,
Caltex Australia— Caltex Australia (@CaltexAustralia) July 11, 2019
Is Coles affected by the EFTPOS outage?
The good news is that Coles stores are trading normally.
In a statement to Yahoo Finance, a Coles spokesperson said: “We understand a small number of Credit Union cards may be impacted by an outage affecting some businesses, however at Coles payments can still be processed via EFTPOS.”
Australians fuming over Telstra outage
Australians took to Twitter to vent their frustration at the outage.
“Ordered my food at Maccas drive through, move up and stuck between cars for just short of 20 minutes after ordering,” one Twitter user said.
“At the window I’m told there is no EFTPOS and so I can’t get what I ordered.”
Ordered my food at @maccas drivethrough, move up and stuck between cars for just short of 20 minutes after ordering. at the window I'm told there is no eftpos, and so I can't get what I ordered. Staff wouldn't even look at me to apologise. Won't be back there, horrible service.
— 👍🏻👍🏻 (@njg2312) July 11, 2019
It appeared McDonalds customers were unhappy across the country.
“You should see people acting like it’s the end of the world,” another Twitter user said.
McDonald s eftpos is down where I'm at. You should see people acting like its the end of the world.
Throwing hissy fits.
😂😂— ✖Dr_Camouflage Man (@Dr_Camouflage_) July 11, 2019
Others, including Australian workers, expressed apprehension for what could be a tough shift.
Fuck I’m starting work and the eftpos machines are down pic.twitter.com/jMTNAZk5BT
— eilish SAW ENDGAME ❤️🌈 (@wavesdxnvers) July 11, 2019
While others decided to just stay home.
Wanted to go to the city after work but EFTPOS is down apparently so no Thursday night shopping for me. Smh
— Andre M (@SpaceFlare_) July 11, 2019
UPDATE: In an updated statement, Woolworths said Telstra had confirmed the network was back up and running.
“We expect our systems to come back online and resume normal service through check-outs over the next hour. We apologise to customers for the inconvenience and delays in shopping this afternoon.
“Stores are continuing to trade.”
Around 6pm, a Telstra spokesman confirmed to Yahoo Finance that many of its services are beginning to come back on line.
“We continue to investigate the issue affecting data services, including EFTPOS and access to ATMS, for a number of enterprise customers nationally. Many of our services are starting to restore. We’re sorry for any issues caused and will provide an update when we know more.”
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